Not this.
You can see [the strength of Obama's narrative] in the utter lack of an effective comedic impersonator of Barack Obama.
When Tina Fey first gave her impression of Sarah Palin, the political world exploded in chatter about how perfectly Fey had captured Palin’s character. Will Ferrell nailed something about Bush … a kind of juvenile cunning frat-boy type spirit.
No one has captured in comedy Obama’s flawed self, whatever you think those flaws are.
(…)
The closest I found to an actually adversarial “impersonation” of Obama (and it’s really just a characterization, but with comic potential) is this, from Karl Rove of all people:
“…even if you never met him, you know this guy. He’s the guy at the country club with the beautiful date, holding a martini and a cigarette that stands against the wall and makes snide comments about everyone who passes by.”
(…)
Using this core as a base — the self-absorbed, poised Mr. Smarter-than-you — the self-confident opportunist who wants your help but won’t give his (why won’t he go to Wisconsin for the Walker Recall?) — could have real comic potential.
I agree that we need more pointed impersonations of Obama, but the Karl Rove version just rehashes the right’s standard narrative of elitist limousine liberals looking down their nose at hardworking decent Americans. Obama’s core flaw isn’t smarter-than-you elitism, it’s sneakiness. For me, the definitive Obama characterization would be that of an insincere phony who talks a good game but always finds a way to fail that just happens to enrich the wealthy and screw over progressives. Here are a couple of sketch ideas that might get that across:
Sketch #1: Obama is presented with a progressive policy concept and says, “Yes, this is exactly the kind of bold reform I want to be my legacy! I will turn it over to a bipartisan congressional committee right away!” Cut to multiple short scenes of an aide rushing into the Oval Office with breathless updates every time the bill gets watered down, while Obama alternates between moaning about how he can’t influence Congress, and looking completely uninterested: texting, playing videogames, throwing pencils at the ceiling, etc.
Finally, when the original idea has been “compromised” so much that it’s a right-wing parody of itself, Obama springs into action and starts physically intimidating Democrats into voting for the conservative monstrosity, then proudly declares victory when it passes. If he has some kind of “Oh Barack, you’ve done it again” catchphrase to smugly congratulate himself with, that would be even better.
Sketch #2: Obama appears to be having a war of words with some crooked corporate CEO, but the camera periodically zooms in on their hands to reveal that while they’re publicly calling each other “vulture capitalist” and “socialist,” they’re secretly signaling each other in sign language or Morse Code. Subtitles would reveal the real conversation to be something along the lines of “Don’t worry, I’ve got your back. How’s the wife and kids?” “They’re good, thanks. Are we still on for golf next Tuesday?” “You bet. Tee time’s at 3, prepare to be schooled.”
Feel free to contribute your own sketch and character ideas in the comments.



85 Comments





Support this site!
Subscribe to the newsletter
Advertise on Firedoglake
Send
us your tips
Make us your homepage
About Firedoglake
Eli!
Unfortunately, I just can’t make myself see anything funny about this double-dealing bastard.
DrPuma!
Well, I could say much the same about Dubya and Our Sarah, but they were both parodied pretty hilariously.
Eli!
you’re right, there are no good O-personators.
Eli!
Buzz!
Elliott!
HEY,ELI ! Obama offends me in a way that Bush never did. Bush was so stupid but Obama isn’t. That makes him more dangerous than Bush could ever be IMO.
I thought Bush and Palin were funny. They parodied themselves quite effectively. Obama never seems to say or do anything that could count as fumbling, bumbling, or making a fool of himself…he just betrays the public over and over again with this completely serious demeanor.
HEY,TWAIN! It’s not the IQ for me so much as the fact that O was supposed to be on our team.
Fair enough. He still deserves a good impersonator, though. One who captures exactly that dynamic.
Our team threw the game in the first inning. They never even tried and I’m still wondering why.
Because we don’t have enough money to buy their loyalty.
Totally agree, and I still say Obama can lose the election. He’s not polling well nationally (mainly because of the economy), he’s down in Florida, he’s even in Wisconsin (I’m going to venture that he’ll lose it, simply because the DNC and he are ignoring the recall election which will further depress the base), and other swing states will fall into Romney like North Carolina.
Obviously if he loses it will be because his socialist overreach turned off independent voters.
ELI!
Obama = used car salesman + revival preacher.
MARGARET!
I was thinking conman, Eddie Haskell, or pickup artist.
One sketch idea might have him sulking because Willard’s new best friend is Trump. You know, “what else could I have done to make him like me?”
Also, Scolding Jamie Dimon could be a recurring theme: “Now Jamie, as I told you last time….”
LOL.
Most independent voters were turned off anyway by Obama’s willingness to cut Medicare and Social Security.
Actually, the scolding back and forth with Dimon was kinda what I had in mind with Sketch #2.
Eddie Haskell + Harold Ford then…
Indiana is running strong for Romney. Obama actually won that state in 2008, mainly because of large Dem turnout in NW Indiana (which is almost an offshoot of Chicago). That doesn’t look like it’s gonna happen again.
I can work with that.
Throw in Cory Booker too.
Have I told you welcome back yet Teddy?
Maybe Obama should have tried keeping more promises? Guess we’ll never know for sure.
Obama reminds me more of the Elmer Gantry character – selling “religion” to the simple folks. He is a true con man.
His alibi is that the Republicans obstructed everything he tried to do, and the more insane they act, the more plausible that seems. Probably not enough though, and it’ll come down to how scary he can make Romney.
Crap. Obama couldn’t even keep his “maybe I mights” or his “I’ll think about its.” He paid no attention to his “I hear ya’s”…..
Puttin’ on his comfortable walking shoes….. how quaint (yes, the degradation of the Bush-Boy years get to taint the new guy…he chose it.)
I can’t imagine why anyone would back this bastard….. how low will they go?
Will Romney be worse? I don’t know. I’d like to believe that some ‘rogue’ Democrats and Independents will step up to shut Romney down. A big Whatever.
The Republicans did indeed obstruct everything, but it’s very hard for me to believe that Obama remained completely naive to their plans for more than three years when the Republicans took what seemed like every opportunity to telegraph their intent…
When you have a candidate who says “I don’t remember what I said but whatever it was I stand by it” you don’t need much more help. The Obama campaign must have loved that. Mitt is truly dumb.
But that entirely fails to explain 01/2009 – 01/2011.
Sketch No. 3
obama in oval office with timmey, his handlers, and the generals. They’re telling him he might lose to romney.
obama: He’s upset and says, “But I did what you all told me to do and the people don’t like me anymore.”
The group: “We know, we know, but we’re working on it. Trust us. If you lose, just don’t stamp your feet.”
obama: “But, but, can I have the Greek columns again to make my final goodbye speech.”
The group: NO! That was ridiculous.
Who can control naughty mavericks like Ben Nelson or Joe Lieberman? It’s impossible!
This race is Obama’s to lose. The Republican powers that be are running Willard because they know he doesn’t stand a chance and they don’t want a President Romney anymore than the rest of us do.
A leader?
Or at least someone who actually wants to.
god help us
Which, if you think about it, is why I want a Romney. Obama is the backer of the banksters…..Romney is just a fool. We have, I think, a better chance shaking the system up with some truth if we have a fool who will occasionally say truth. We are not getting any truth from the Great Black/White Hope. (And, yes, I voted for him and for hope and change and all that good stuff…….but he wasn’t true. Hard lesson.)
One thing that still kind of haunts me is the way Obama trotted out his old white uncle…never heard another word about the old dude. I’d love for someone to interview that old warrior to see if his adoring nephew has sent him a card or called him in the past three+ years.
The sketch I have in my head is “The Rocky Horror Bullshit Show”
Starring Barack Obama as Frankenfurter, renamed Phil E. Buster (as in “blame it on the.”)
Co-starring Rahm as “Riff-Raff” and Gibbs as “Magenta.” Dawn Johnson plays “Meatloaf” reprising the role of being ceremonially killed and eaten.
The introductory song for Obama would be “I’m just a sweet bi-partite, from ‘Mo-sexual, Presidentia, huh huh” ending
“So come up to the Hill,
and see what’s in the bilz.
I see you shiver, with antici….PATION!
But maybe the Right’s not really to blame.
So I’ll remove the cause.
But screw, the NATION”
Didn’t work with Bush though…
I think you mean “Baracky Horror”.
I guess that makes Columbia Markos Moulitsas, the lovestruck cheerleader type.
lulz! That’s bettah.
It’s just a jump to the right…
Why, yes.
Or Brad, you know, once blown, hooked.
and then a step to the right!
Put you hand on your hips
(And ladies) Bring your knees in tight!
I don’t much care for Romney and think he’s vapid and non-empathic, but he is not stupid in the way Bush was stupid. I still haven’t quite figured out how the American populace fell for that empty jump suit. I’m pretty sure we are fucked no matter who gets elected, so I don’t invest too much emotion in it.
LMAO! I hadn’t thought of Brad but that’s very appropriate.
I guess the Janet Character will be played by the “bottom” 90 percent of the American public. Getting screwed by Frank, Brad and various and sundry interests.
And, I think it was the people, the populace, who stopped Bush The Lesser from privatizing Social Security….. I’d like to do that again with Romney the Raider. I’m less assured that we can stop ObamaMan from pick-pocketing all of us…..it’s his nature, dontcha know, that Kenyan background and all/s
Not that many people will have time to figure it out, but I think that we will in time find that we liberals pretty much begged him to game us, and that he–a true prodigy–left plenty of intentional clues as to what he was about from start to finish: a deeply conservative guy by characterological inclination, completely invested in the maintenance of American empire by every brutal means necessary. It’s the failure to call him on his murderous bullshit on the international front that history will record as OUR biggest blindspot. Even here, no one gives too much of a shit if we’re militarizing Africa, propping up dictatorships in Honduras, etc. We backbite over the (yes miserable) ways he prevaricates about homosexuality, with states’ rights for excuse. . . Brown people are out there dying, in droves, as ever, to preserve the empire, he is pulling the trigger with genuine excitement in the WH, and Americans just don’t really care. Nor do we really care (or care to know) that half of the black American middle class has slid back into poverty, that the commoditization of the poor in the prison industrial system continues apace, that he hasn’t lifted a finger for the poor or (even from the strictly necessary POV of making new capitalist growth possible) followed through on rebuilding America’s collapsing infrastucture. . . Many, many sadsack liberals just continue–astonishingly–to get their nut over the fact that he is brown. And you know, I am a white man from Detroit, who cried with his brown daughter at the inauguration. But from Rahm Emanuel to lecturing black fathers in REALLY BAD tone-deaf imitation of MLK a la Sistah Souljah to cynical drone jokes at press functions, you either identify the thing as a duplicitous shuck or you turn off your ears altogether and just gush. Many, many people just wanted to go back to sleep after the horrors of Geo. Bush; they are sleeping right through America’s funeral. And Guantanamo marches on, and we have doubled up on the drones, and whistle blowers are being persecuted as never before. . .
Very well said. Thank you.
X2
Moreover, the ranks of the comedians are shot through with Obots who would never dare make fun of our first Black President no matter how sold out he in fact is. It’s time to head for the hills, folks.
Obama is the smiling, unctuous guy who talks dirty and flirty to Michelle on the phone, and then it is revealed that’s she’s Michelle Malkin.
Obama plays golf with John Boehner and gives him tips on how to negotiate for more concessions during the debt ceiling talks. He’s occasionally interrupted by a cell phone call from Lloyd Blankfein or Jamie Dimon who want to water down financial regulations. Obama hits them up for campaign cash and assures them that Holder has their backs. He then brags to Boehner that he knows these guys and that they’re very savvy businessmen.
Simple explanation. There’s nothing funny about a traitor. Shrub and The Quitter weren’t traitors.
There’s a script….and you didn’t even have to write it. Just observe it.
Dismal!
Obama has a scotch in one hand and a joint in the other while talking about the need to crack down hard on medical marijuana clinics. He’s asked where he gets his dope. “I know a guy in Chicago and he’s going to be hurt if these clinics catch on nationally.”
Carry on! (I do recall that Obama wasn’t going to waste his good time on medical marijuana…..until he decided he would.)
I’d also like to know what Romney did in MA that is worse than anything Obama has done to America. I can’t stand either one of them, but I do believe that Romney is more vulnerable to change. And we should all be paying attention to electing any correct-thinking Congress-critters that we might be able to influence.
Raw dog. The auguries were there. I hoped for better. Should’a known.
Reflection points to our electoral deficiencies: disporportionate representation, and especially how we finance campaigns.
The house is gamed.
I’m not going to vote for Willard either.
Well some of us were treated pretty shabbily for daring to point out some of those auguries.
I think the brilliance of the Obama ‘ascent’ is that there was so little known about him….and he sounded so smooth. And I admit to enormous naivete… I was so disgusted with Bush The Lesser that I really hoped that Obama would bring something different. What fascinates me most, is that he brought Nothing! different. Just more of the same under a different name. And, yes, I did read and listen to those who questioned Obama’s candidacy. But I fell for it, and I’m paying for it! Never again!
And, then, too…..would we be better off with ‘the first female president’?
Oman is not really running he’s negotiating his next perch.
His comprehensive backing of the swindler at Goldman & the house of Morgan
Have positioned him for the seats of choice on the boards of his dreams or if
negotiations go well with the Morman mafia. He may get the coveted
Lifetime seat on the supremes bench.
I see Chris Rock with some spray on grey wisdom
On a golf course with the Wall Streeters. They call him over
To the “big’s cart” the bigs played by Steve Martin as Diamond
And Danny Ackroyd in a scalp-piece as Blankfein
Rock (as the o-man) says look we covered you on the
Real Estate deal & the taxpayers bailed you out,
Regulation is toothless and what a couple of rogue clerks
Get a round or two on federal grounds – I want my 50big ones
B-Man we’d like a couple more years of cover
So here’s the way it’s going to go The Mittster
In a fit of bi-partisan healing will appoint you to
The Supeeme Court as a nod to Socialists everywhere!
Indeed. Remember Obama said Afghanistan was the ‘good war’ and he promised to ramp it up? A lot of us hoped it was a head-fake to the political right, but Obama did escalate a failed war.
Obama ran the most deceitful campaign in modern times, if not ever. I was had, I admit. Cassandras and prescient ones like yourself never get their do.
Do you remember those Phil Harman SNL sketches that began with Reagan just being a real jovial idiot who couldn’t even carry on a conversation? I think he was talking to someone selling door to door at the White House and he couldn’t even comprehend what the person was saying. He’d just nod and smile. It was kind of like the way Eric Idle’s Guard responded to Michael Palin’s King of Swamp Castle in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. But then later Reagan gets alone with his team and the smile disappears and he turns out to actually be an evil genius mastermind with complex plots, charts, figures and the ability to remember all sorts of things.
do = due
Obama is a tuffy because he is the consummate straight man. He has perfected the art of looking like he started something only to allow others to finish it their way. Make no mistake, Obama is a skilled manipulator. He’s just not taking control and that’s how he wants it. He wanted to get elected bad. But he doesn’t enjoy the dirty work and the toe to toe combats that he signed on for.
I used to substitute teach. I see Obama portraying a lot of what it was like to be a substitute teacher. You go in and you don’t know anybody or where anything is, so you’re forced to get lots of help from other people as to what to do next. Yes, you have a cryptic outline… You don’t know the competent from the incompetent. You don’t know the kids you need to keep an eye on. You’re highly likely being conned into doing things that the regular teacher wouldn’t do.. ETc. A class full of ill behaved teenagers makes you look bad and they go home without a care in the world.
That’s how I see Obama. He is simply coasting, not taking real control, letting others drive, and basically letting too much happen outside of his knowledge.
Then there was FISA. And let’s not forget his support for Lieberman in 2006. He could out DLC Hillary Clinton. I too voted for the guy but maybe one reason I’m not as disappointed in him as some others are is because I knew I wasn’t voting for a liberal.
If there was anything funny about Obama a comic would have found it by now (it’s a very competitive field). There is simply nothing funny about him, even by caricature.
I see a sketch with Obama and his aging high school buddies from the Choom Gang having a high school reunion in the Oval office. They are all praising their buddy Obama for his ability to obtain the best bud. Then a cut to federal agents stressing how important their mission is as they raid a medical marijuana clinic in California.
Lookit, we have an electoral system that produces a product. It will give us Clintons and Reagans and W’s and Obamas forever up the yin-yang. That’s the symptom, not the root cause.
“That’s the symptom, not the root cause…” of our enormous failure as a nation-state.
somebody could flip his Nobel Peace Prize on its ear.
make him like Idi Amin
I’VE GOT IT.
You know that snake in Disney’s, the Jungle Book, Kaa??
(Trust in Me)
You can believe in Me.
Trust in me, just in me
Shut your eyes and trust in me
You can sleep safe and sound
Knowing I am around
Slip into silent slumber
Sail on a silver mist
Slowly and surely your senses
Will cease to resist
Trust in me, just in me
Shut your eyes and trust in me
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSXgU_yqXK0
or the constitutional scholar that tore up the constitution
or the community organizer that turned his back on the dispossessed
i could go on forever he is a riot/
yes that was jungle book by Kipling,a man who knew empire,and the snakes that ran it
Nah, it was gamed from go. Whichever it was, first female pres or first black pres, it would be the last for a very long time. And that is enough reason to hate them, right there.
His method has always been to make suckers of us. I think it would be fairly easy to imitate him–just show him in his used-car-salesman element, theatrically performing some inspirational quote from Thoreau or Martin Luther King in front of a rapt adoring audience–then turning slightly aside to roll his eyes and say something contemptuously cynical to a member of his inner circle.
ew,me likey
Obama is definitely (as in the song by The Offspring) “Pretty Fly For A White Guy”.