He's the President, Not A Pop Star

People waited for hours to get tickets.

They arrived at 2 a.m. or earlier. Some had the foresight to bring tents, while others lay in wait on cots or sat in lounge chairs for all that time.

Just a glimpse of him would be more than some could ever wish for. Alas, more than a thousand people were turned away after learning there were no more tickets.

Forget Michael Jackson and his sold-out concert in London. I’m referring to President Obama’s town hall meeting in Costa Mesa, California.

The point of the town hall meeting was to provide an opportunity for Obama to spread his economic message. But it was peppered with American Idol-like adulation and screams of the kind I imagine Elvis Presley must have received.

A couple of times somebody in the crowd yelled, “I love you.” The president responded, “I love you back.”

I cringed.

What’s love got to do with it?

We’re still fighting two wars, have Iran breathing down our necks, an economic crisis of epidemic proportions on our hands, and the people are acting like he’s Paris Hilton, not the president.

Okay, Sen. John McCain , R-Ariz., tried to use that line before and it didn’t work. But some presidential scholars now worry that Obama risks being perceived as not taking his job seriously enough.

“I think there is a danger for Obama in looking too much like a celebrity star. It was an avenue of attack that McCain used against him in the campaign, it didn’t work then, but that was the campaign. It’s different when you’re in office,” says Jeremy Mayer, presidential expert at George Mason University. “I think he risks the stature of the presidency being diminished.”

Obama recognized the attention he was getting from the crowd (I guess you can’t ignore someone yelling, “I love you”) but he also tried to strike a more somber note by steering the audience back to his message about the economy.

There is a certain “coolness” to Obama’s approach that may help make him more appealing to the masses than past presidents. But what happens when you’re too cool, too awesome?

Perhaps we found out when Obama appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, becoming the first sitting president on late night TV.

Between commercial breaks to sell cars, deodorant and laxatives, the president made a bad joke about the Special Olympics. By all accounts, Obama knew he had crossed a line, and almost immediately apologized.

In today’s fragmented media market, Obama is using multiple platforms to reach out to different groups of people and that comes with certain risks, says Eric Deggans, media critic for The St. Petersburg Times.

“The Special Olympics gaffe is an example of what happens when you make a minor mistake. I think the issue would have been more serious if the comment highlighted or was an example of a larger insensitivity connected to Obama’s policies,” adds Deggans. “But it wasn’t, and Obama apologized quickly, as he should have.

“But I think people are missing the fact that Obama spent a fair amount of time explaining his position on the AIG bailout, the bonus scandal, efforts by his administration to shore up the economy and the reasons why they have chosen the strategies they have,” says Deggans. “Just because he didn’t do it in front of a podium, doesn’t mean it wasn’t a meaningful exchange. I just think people need to take a deep breath and separate controversies which matter from the ones that don’t.”

Most Americans still approve of the job Obama is doing, though his popularity has slipped a bit.

But don’t tell that to the screaming fans in Costa Mesa.

To them, Obama is still bigger than a rock star.