Weird Presidential standards

Maureen Dowd, not exactly the sharpest nail in the toolbox as it is, posits that Barack Obama takes himself too seriously:

Many of the late-night comics and their writers — nearly all white — now admit to The New York Times’s Bill Carter that because of race and because there is nothing “buffoonish” about Obama ...

At first blush, it would seem to be a positive for Obama that he is hard to mock. But on second thought, is it another sign that he’s trying so hard to be perfect that it’s stultifying? Or that eight years of W. and Cheney have robbed Democratic voters of their sense of humor? ...

[I]f Obama gets elected and there is nothing funny about him, it won’t be the economy that’s depressed. It will be the rest of us.

You heard it here first, folks. It is a requirement for a president to be silly in some way, otherwise he's "stultifying" in a way that will "depress" comedy writers, and, oh, the rest of us.

I'm getting a little tired of these oddball ideals that the media considers important for leaders of a nation. Awareness of the issues? The ability to delegate wisely? Keen judgment during crucial diplomatic and economic junctures? No, you gotta want to have a beer with him. You gotta be able to laugh at him. Haw! Haw!

This lackadaisical attitude can't possibly resonate with a voter faced with a horrible economy and a spiralling out-of-control war. In 2000, it was easier to be complacent and assume the President was a goofy figurehead who had no influence on the greater power of law. We know differently now. I think more and more voters are willing to skip the beer and laughs in order to point to their broken lives screaming "Fix it!" In order to inspire the confidence of a world-weary populace, you pretty much have to throw away the clown makeup.