Jimmy Kimmel offered President Obama a chance to participate in the ‘mean tweets’ segment tonight, and he happily agreed to read nasty tweets about himself! I wonder if our Commander in Chief has seen this segment before? Jimmy regularly celebrities from show business, sports and music to read horrible things about themselves. While the victims read mean tweets, REM’s vein-opening dirge “Everybody Hurts” plays in the background, jerking a tear and a sniffle from the hardest heart.
I’m grateful that Twitter did not exist in the time of Lincoln, or the poor man might have been too dispirited to carry on. In his day, a well thought-out, laboriously written and slowly delivered letter was the common mode of communication. Today’s tweets may be too fast for the speed of (civil) thought. With this in mind, and Jimmy’s reminder that ‘Presidents are people too’ – the President of the United States reads and responds thoughts that prey on the minds of some Americans. He vowed to represent them all – if the Republicans haven’t made him rethink the wisdom of that promise, the twittersphere may.
Whatever you think about President Obama, you cannot deny that he is a good sport. He laughs often, and even agrees with some of the twitter meanies. Several of the writers seem to think that Obama’s life is stress-free, which is an indictment of the average 12-year-old’s awareness of current events. I hope the writers are no older than twelve!
One snarky writer got a grammar lesson when he tweeted : “Somebody send Obama some lifehacks on how to be a good president.haha. like, i bet that would help.lol.”
The President offered, “Yah, the ‘LOL’s’ redundant, when you already had the ‘haha'” Score one for the POTUS.
It was the President’s turn to learn something when the oft-mentioned topic of ‘mom jeans’ reared it’s snarky head again.The writer offered the following critique:
“I am alright with the president wearing jeans. I’m just not alright with the President wearing THOSE jeans.
Jimmy emerged in a show of solidarity with the President, wearing ‘mom jeans’ he surely borrowed from Mitt Romney. The President experienced an ‘a-ha’ moment tonight,as he looked over Jimmy’s ill-fitting pants, admitting, “They’ve got a point.” While the snarky tweet wasn’t meant to be helpful, I’ll wager we’ve seen the last of the offending jeans. People care so very much!