In case you've been living under a rock, the latest in viral videos features Aston Kutcher and Demi Moore and about two-dozen other celebrities talking about things they promise to do to help the Obama administration achieve their goals.
Most of the stuff they pledge to do is fairly innocuous, but useful stuff, like pledging to buy a more fuel efficient car, but at the end of the video, the tone changes to something really chilling. At the end of the video they pledge "to be a servant to our president."
The entire point of the American presidency is that he is not a king we serve, but a man who serves us. Inverting that relationship is very, very dangerous.
For all the really crazy and really stupid things the Republicans did over the years, they never did anything like this. Can you imagine anyone pledging to be "a servant" to George Bush or Ronald Reagan?
I don't see any indication that the president himself was involved in the making of this video, but you know who was? Oprah Winfrey. At the end of the video you see that her company Harpo Productions owns the copyright to it.
Who the hell puts their name on a thing like this to say she owns it? Is Oprah bucking to be the power behind the throne by making Obama king?
As her popularity grows, Oprah becomes more and more the victim of common hubris. Let's hope our new president has the presence of mind to avoid this for himself.
There's enough going on right now that threatens to move us into fascism, we do not need a Fuhrer as well.
Below are Penn Jilette's sometimes rambling comments on this issue from his Video Blog:
I include this video because Penn sums up the situation so precisely when he says "Fuck! To be a servant to our president? Somebody explain it to me, please."
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