Writing in The Wall Street Journal the other day, that Republican Party rapscallion Karl Rove reached this conclusion: "Mr. Obama will appear on five news shows on Sunday. His time might be better spent praying for more public support."
Hello? Obama should be "praying?" That's a low blow, even from Karl Rove. These days, of course, Rove has a gig with Fox News and in Barack Obama's extraordinary weekend TV blitz, he has pointedly ignored Fox. Thus, Rove's thundering denunciation stinks of Fox's Obama-envy.
It's estimated that by the end of yesterday, Sunday, Obama will have concluded 124 print, broadcast and radio interviews during his time in office as president. After the same period in office, George W. Bush had done 40 interviews and Bill Clinton had done 46. These figures are tallied by a political scientist at Towson University in Maryland and quoted in USA Today recently.
So, Obama's 125th interview will be on Late Show with David Letterman (tonight, CBS, OMNI, 11:35) when he will be the sole guest. Letterman's show is usually about jokes and goofing around. So, herewith, the Top 10 Reasons Why Barack Obama is on Late Show with David Letterman.
No. 10: Leno's show sucks, Conan O'Brien is an immature idiot. Letterman now rules.
No. 9: Wolf Blitzer scares him.
No. 8: He was rejected for Celebrity Jeopardy.
No. 7: Every Letterman guest goes home with a free copy of Dan Brown's new novel and Michelle wanted one.
No. 6: Stephen Hair-in-the-Fridge Harper dared him to do it.
No. 5: Biff Henderson has always been a role model.
No. 4: He still owes Dave for hammering John McCain.
No. 3: It's easier than getting tickets.
No. 2: He was hoping Beyoncé would be the other guest.
And the No. 1 reason why President Barack Obama is appearing on Late Show with David Letterman: He did, in fact, lie. He isn't an American citizen, so he is not eligible to be the president. He wants to fess up.
Seriously now, Obama's ubiquity on American TV might seem startling, but it's inevitable. He got elected, in part, because he understands TV with an intuitive sense of how the medium works and what impact it has. He's also very, very good on TV - he's cool in the sense that Marshall McLuhan described TV as a "cool" medium. McLuhan suggested that a cool medium obliges the audience to complete the experience by projecting meaning into what is seen and heard. Those who understand that process of completion triumph on TV. And Obama understands it fully.
That process of completion is essentially about creating trust. The process cannot be completed if the person on TV has something to hide. On TV, Obama is utterly confident, relaxed and the message he sends is that he has nothing to hide.
Right now, Obama's task is to sell Americans on his plan for health-care reform. It hasn't clicked, so far, because too many Americans believe there is something to fear in his plan. His job is to make them unafraid by being unafraid of him. While he sells himself as a man with nothing to hide, he's selling his health-care reform as something that has nothing hidden in it, nothing to make anyone afraid.
Most people in the United States get their news from television. Most of them have gained their impression of Barack Obama from TV. Most of them have garnered their impressions of health-care reform from TV. They've become afraid of that reform partly because U.S. TV news instinctively breeds fear. The local news breeds fear of criminals, drug addicts and child molesters. The national TV news breeds fear of anything that is foreign or different. Fear works as an audience-grabber. It always has. Obama's job is to diminish the fear by being himself on TV - a man with nothing to hide, a man whom nobody should fear.
And why do this on Letterman? Well, for a start, the Letterman gig will probably be seen by far more people than all those Sunday political chat shows. The Letterman gig will end up on YouTube and other online sources. It will automatically go viral in a way that no other TV-show appearance can go viral. But, more importantly, in TV interviews Obama has the air of a man with a sense of humour about himself and the world around him. As such, he's the first U.S. president to be a suitable guest on a late-night talk show. He's already done The Tonight Show, when Jay Leno was host, and what the world learned then is that his confidence is striking and he lacks arrogance or hubris. He is simply assured and relaxed. He's incapable of being defensive or phlegmatic.
In Obama's case, the person is the message, the message is the person and on Letterman he has his best chance at selling the health-care message. Karl Rove and the Republicans can only pray they have someone as cool on TV as this guy.
Check local listings.
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Also airing
House (Fox, Global, 8 p.m.) returns and the two-hour opening episode is superb. Dr. House (Hugh Laurie) is taken to a psychiatric institution because, well, he's lost it and there was an apparent overdose. He's humbled by his fate, and hitting rock bottom. The scenes between Laurie and Andre Braugher, playing a hard-nosed doctor who runs the psychiatric facility, are outstanding. This is exceptionally fine TV drama.
Diana Krall: Live in Rio (Bravo!, 8 p.m.) is what it says - Krall performs live in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The sexy setting and appreciative audience add to the often samba and bossa-influenced renditions of several songs from her 2009 album Quiet Nights, and older favourites. J.D.