Barack and roll all morning

From the Yep-that's-morning-TV department:

Tuesday on the Good Day L.A. program*, amidst the usual frivolity, they showed a video (from the web!) featuring footage of Senator Obama set to Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up" (which was a hit back in 1987, and which became an ironic hit again this year when it was used in a fad known as "Rickrolling"). Someone edited bits of Obama speeches featuring the specific words in the song and synchronized them with the song almost perfectly. For the music-only intro it featured shots of him dancing on the Ellen show. See for yourself below:



It was impressive both in its execution and in that how-does-someone-have-that-kind-of-free-time? way. The on-air personalities (they're not doing news so they're not anchors) commented about that afterward.

Then Dorothy Lucey, the leather-skinned co-host who, despite having majored in political science, reports the celebrity gossip stories (and who seems to have the Caps Lock key stuck when she types her blog), made a quip about how it was clear he was half-white by the way he danced.

Yes, there's nothing more hilarious in the year 2008 than a joke that ostensibly plays on the stereotype that everyone of a particular race is a bad dancer. I'm sure the viewing audience at home who was not blow-drying their hair or shuffling their children off to school or hitting the snooze button for an imprudent fourteenth time was in absolute hysterics over that remark.

If there's one thing that individuals like Fred Astaire and Justin Timberlake have failed to do over the last half-century is to demonstrate any ability to move rhythmically to music in a well-coordinated and fluid manner. I hear that any white people who audition for So You Think You Can Dance are only filmed so they can appear on an irony themed "blooper" episode, with the judges barely able to refrain from bursting into laughter the whole time.

It's certainly encouraging to know that there's still room for sweeping generalizations based on race in contemporary American society without eliciting any sort of backlash.

However…

A cursory analysis of Ms. Lucey's quip proves it to be way too glib, and not remotely accurate. Clearly she doesn't know what she's talking about.**

Oh, it's not that she's wrong about white people being wooden dancers. (I mean, we've already established that, haven't we? Haven't we? There's no way I was being sarcastic, was there?)

No, she merely attributed Obama's moves on the Ellen show to the wrong group.

He didn't dance like a white person—he danced like an attorney. Have you seen those people dance? Nothing sucks the soul out of one's skills on the floor like passing the bar! To practice law one must check one's rhythm at the door. Am I right or am I right?

Yuk-yuk. Thanks. I'll be here all week.

~

President Bush—now there's a dancer. Have you seen his moves?



There's only one explanation: Clearly, he must not be white.

Therefore if Obama gets inaugurated next year he won't be the first president of color.

I'm not sure what color Bush is, but it must be one of them.

~

* I grasp has a rhyme in it, but "good day" is generally used when departing, so it makes it a somewhat less-than-appropriate name for a show about starting the day. I digress.

~

** A person on TV demonstrating a failure to think before speaking. I know—I was shocked as well.

Hey, apparently she has an Emmy, so she must be infallible. Don't daytime TV awards grant one the same power as the Pope? Well, if nothing else it, she's kept her job since 1993, so she must have some appeal.

~

Dorothy Lucey: She is an inspiration for me. I'm not sure she'd be happy to hear that, however.