Here’s a preview of your upcoming few months: all media outlets will put Barack Obama and his family’s faces on anything they reasonably can, because it is a license to print money. (TIME magazine, which just put out an Obama book, being no exception.) The Obama gravy train made a stop at 60 Minutes last night, and rewarded Steve Kroft with the show’s best ratings in nearly a decade.
[Here's where I would embed a clip, if we had yet worked through the embedding bugs on our new blog platform. In the meantimeUpdate: Fixed! I'm pretty sure! If you have problems playing, the lengthier Barack-and-Michelle video is here.]
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The interview itself was structured like a miniature edition of a network morning show, first offering the eat-your-vegetables policy interview (with BHO solo) up front, then segueing into the back end of the program, which gave more than half of the program to Obama family issues: the status of the puppy conundrum, Malia’s reaction to the cheers at school the day after the election (“That’s embarrassing”) and Obama’s tips to Kroft on dealing with mothers-in-law (“Steve, I’m not going to compare my mother-in-law to a new dog”).
School, puppies and mother-in-law jokes: the First Family is launching a 1950s family sitcom before our eyes. And not to say that it’s contrived, but the First Couple Elect pretty much have their Rob and Laura Petrie routine down, from Michelle’s amiable needling to Barack’s put-upon self-deflation. (On Michelle’s reaction to him after he won: ”And then you said, ‘Are you going to take the kids to school in the morning?’”)
Next on Meet the Obamas: all heck breaks loose when the movers lose the ottoman! [Update: Or is there a better sitcom title out there? First Family Matters? At Least 52% of Everybody Loves Barack?]
