Sweet Child O' Mine

Throughout the presidential campaign of 2008—the one in which John McCain offered us a military record, Sarah Palin offered us a low IQ, Barack Obama offered us everything, and Joe Biden offered us...um...uh...anyway—I noticed quite early that Obama fans were, indeed, fans. Mr. Obama had a rock star persona, whereby he could walk into a room and generate a response akin to those of Britney Spears, Elton John, or Metallica. Moreover, it had become rather apparent that right-wingers had God and Jesus; left-wingers had Barack.

Being one who is not a fan of either organized religion or the two-party political machine that we have in the United States, I watched the game—and yes, I believe that game is the most appropriate term available—from the dugout, almost like a pitching coach who might be keeping tabs on which pitcher is delivering which pitch to which batter during which inning. Even though I was attending the game, I wasn’t actually in the game.

While I readily accept such a position, since it’s self-imposed, one thing that was tough to accept was seeing free passes issued to Obama for things that were previously considered evils that were perpetrated by George W. Bush. For instance, when it was revealed that Obama’s then-nominee for Attorney General, Eric Holder, endorsed an extension of the PATRIOT Act that allows federal agents to obtain Americans’ library book sign-out records and bookstore purchase records whenever they might want to. The records could be obtained after a secret court authorized the search and the person who might be the target of the search doesn’t even have to be a terrorism suspect. Any law-abiding American was fair game.

Under George W. Bush, such a provision could have—and should have—been considered morally and ethically wrong; under Obama it would be okay. A comment left by one of my (few) readers affirmed such a situation. “[W]hat’s the big deal about people finding out what books you read?” the comment asked. Even one of my coworkers took the double-standard approach to it, whereby she was outraged that Sarah Palin had been involved in a library book censorship scandal but didn’t seem to mind when her favorite candidate—Obama—had a cabinet nominee who was going to support a fascist tactic, too.

Obama and his crew had become rock stars and you have to give your favorite rock star a little leeway, after all.

With this in mind I read a news article yesterday that didn’t shock me: Obama might appear on American Idol. According to Access Hollywood, President Obama has been invited to appear on the popular prime-time karaoke show by judge du décennie, Simon Cowell. “He’s a rock star!” Cowell said of Obama.

Maybe if he’s willing to show up on The Bachelor or Dancing with the Stars he’ll become the greatest president ever.

Reference

“President Obama to Visit ‘American Idol’?” NBC Washington / Access Hollywood. 1 May 2009.

Ω