ABC News reports on a Presidential misadventure in poorly-timed interviews, resulting in some uncomfortable “optics” for Barack Obama on the eve of a natural disaster:
As Hurricane Sandy barreled toward the Mid-Atlantic this morning, and the White House scrambled to get the commander in chief back to Washington, President Obama could be heard on the radio airwaves in battleground Ohio talking about his iPod.
“I’ve got a pretty good mix. I’ve got old school. Stevie Wonder and James Brown. I’ve got Rolling Stones. Bob Dylan. And then I’ve got everything from Jay-Z to Eminem to the Fugees to you name it,” Obama told DJ E.J. Greig of Cincinnati’s 101.1 The Wiz in a pre-taped interview.
“There’s probably not a group that you play that I don’t have on my iPod. So I’ve got some jazz, John Coltrane, Miles Davis. Got some Gil Scott Heron on there. You gotta mix it up,” he said. “It just depends on the mood I’m in.”
The seven-minute interview was taped Saturday during Obama’s campaign stop in New Hampshire. It’s unclear if any listeners found the chat discordant at a time of serious impending crisis, though the timing does illustrate a potential peril of pre-taping lighter interviews in advance of an anticipated event demanding somber presidential posture.
This is exactly the kind of story Obama’s infantile supporters would seize upon with furious intensity, had it befallen his Republican opponent, particularly if said Republican was the incumbent president. Hurricane Sandy was not exactly an unsuspected menace on Saturday.
But the larger question is why President Obama is goofing around with disk jockeys and blathering about his iPod playlist, when he can’t seem to find time to get us some answers on the “stand down” order in Benghazi, or even address the nation about the terrorist attack that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and his brave defenders. The general strategy Obama executed with respect to Hurricane Sandy illustrates just how lax and uncaring he was about Benghazi, a crisis that did not even momentarily interfere with his campaign activities, or even keep him up late at night.
Somehow there’s always time for golf, fundraisers, and softball interviews with MTV and “Entertainment Tonight,” but never time for Obama to sit through those dreary national security briefings, find out why his Justice Department was pushing thousands of guns into Mexico, or ponder the wisdom of sinking billions of taxpayer dollars into doomed “green energy” companies with absurd business models. Obama laughed when he found out the “shovel-ready jobs” he blew a trillion of our dollars on didn’t actually exist. Maybe he should have spent less time mixing up his iPod playlist.
