The New York Times was always likely to say something completely ridiculous about President Obama upon his departure, and its critic-at-large Wesley Morris has duly obliged.
The 44th President was a stunning success, Morris argues, because he hung around with A-list singers, actors and musicians. But he’s not getting enough credit for it! Morris argues: “Mr. Obama’s place in popular culture has always felt new, alive and mostly underappreciated.”
Morris says Obama wasn’t merely a cool pop-cultural beacon. He was our father!: “Mr. Obama, for nearly all of his tenure, was fully aware of, interested in, and knowledgeable about popular culture, even as it grew impossible to take it all in. He tried: sports, movies, television, the Internet, music, books. He was protean and catholic.
“He was thoughtful and self-deprecating, cool and yet far from it. He was a version of America’s dad, and the dad some kids wished theirs could be: fit for world leadership, fit for a sitcom.”
What is Morris’ evidence for these sweeping claims? The fact that Obama was quoted in a New Yorker article last year about Aretha Franklin: “For a critical profile of Ms. Franklin in The New Yorker, its editor, David Remnick, reached out to the president. As a critic, I feel a duty to point out that that’s an unusual move. Mr. Remnick is also, among other things, a critic. He knows Ms. Franklin’s worth as an American treasure and that it has no price. He’s more than equipped to sum her up.
“But he outsourced that job. To the president of the United States. And if you got to that section of that story and considered rolling your eyes (“When I emailed President Obama about Aretha Franklin and that night …”), you immediately retreated when you read what Mr. Obama wrote in response.”
(Conveniently no mention is made of the fact the Queen of Soul hated the piece.)
Don’t worry about the fact Obama is the first President since Hoover not to preside over a single year of 3% economic growth, Morris seems to be saying. He lunched with some cool guests: “Has any president been as conversant in the art and popular culture of this country as Barack Obama? Who has been as committed to opening up the White House to the sorts of artists he has?
“Lunches with the novelists Zadie Smith, Barbara Kingsolver, Junot Díaz, Dave Eggers and Colson Whitehead. One lunch, actually. That was one lunch. Initiative summits that included Alicia Keys, Nicki Minaj, J. Cole, Ludacris, Rick Ross, Pusha T., Common and Chance the Rapper.”
The New York Times Executive Editor Dean Baquet pledged to change its elite out-of-touch inwardness that caused it to get the election so wrong, and to better reflect the values of middle America.
If this piece is anything to go by, it’s going in the other direction.
