Categories
Amusing News

Obama Roasts Trump

President Obama gave a speech last night at the White House Correspondent’s Dinner and preceded to roast birther-in-chief Donald Trump.

The annual dinner has been a Washington tradition since 1920 and usually sees the President get spoofed by a comedian.

What added a little spice this year was that reality TV star Donald Trump was in the audience and Obama decided to have a little fun with the current outbreak of birther nonsense that has gripped parts of the US.

The White House even prepared a self-deprecating trailer for the event, using outtakes from Obama’s video addresses and Joe Biden’s gaffes:

Full video of the dinner can be seen here:

Some highlights included Obama doing the following:

  • Showing footage from The Lion King (1994) as his ‘birth video’ and explaining to the Fox News table that this was a joke.
  • Replying to Matt Damon’s disappointment in his presidency (“Well, Matt, I just saw The Adjustment Bureau, so…right back atcha, buddy.”)
  • On Michelle Bachman’s possible run for president in 2012 (“I hear she was born in Canada. Yes Michelle, this is how it starts.”)

Saturday Night Live comedian Seth Meyers continued Obama’s jokes.

Check out his full speech here:

Key quote:

“Donald Trump often talks about running as a Republican, which is surprising, I just assumed he was running as a joke.”

Trump seemed less than amused.

> AP report on the event
> More on the White House Correspondents’ Dinner at Wikipedia

Categories
TV

President Obama on Tonight with Jay Leno

Here is President Obama‘s appearence on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, which was recorded yesterday.

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News

President Barack Obama 2009 Inauguration and Address

The swearing in and inauguration speech in full from C-SPAN.

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News

The Inauguration of Barack Obama – Live

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Interesting

Barack Obama on Charlie Rose

Two interesting interviews with the soon to be US President on the Charlie Rose show.

This one is from 2004:

 

And this one is from 2006:

Categories
News Technology video

Download videos on YouTube

Interesting things are happening on YouTube, as you can now officially download selected videos from the site.

One such video is President-Elect Obama’s recent weekly address:

The above is an embed but if you view the video on the actual site you will see more options.

Obama address on YouTube regular

For example you can also view it in HD:

Obama address in HD

But on the bottom left of the video you will see a link saying ‘click to download’:

Obama address on YouTube download linkIf you click on it then you can download the video as an MP4 video file to your computer. 

[Link via Lessig]

Categories
Amusing News

Obama teams up with Spider-Man

Obama Spiderman coverPresident-elect Barack Obama has teamed up with Spider-Man.

Marvel have announced a special tribute issue:

To celebrate the upcoming inauguration of Barack Obama, Marvel is proud to present an all-new story teaming up one of the world’s most recognizable political figures with the world’s greatest super hero as President-Elect Obama joins Spider-Man in “Spidey Meets the President!”

Written by Zeb Wells with art by Todd Nauck and Frank D’Armata, the story takes place in Washington, D.C. on Inauguration Day and finds one of Spider-Man’s oldest foes attempting to thwart the swearing in ceremony of the 44th President of the United States. 

Obama reportedly collected Spider-Man comics as a child, so Marvel wanted to give him a ‘shout-out back’ by featuring him in a bonus story, said Joe Quesada, Marvel’s editor-in-chief.

Spidey even gets a fist bump from the incoming president:

Obama Spidey fist bump

The Obama story is a bonus in Marvel Comic’s Amazing Spider-Man #583, available in comic book shops on January 14th and is expected to sell out, with half the covers devoted to Obama.

But can I suggest Marvel do another special issue for the outgoing vice-president

Maybe a teamup with Kingpin?

Dick Cheney and Kingpin

Marvel describe the bald-headed Spidey villain (aka Wilson Fisk) as:

…a criminal mastermind who is involved in extensive illegal activities such as drug running, smuggling, murder, and so forth.

Despite this, he has no criminal record and an army of lawyers to keep it that way, and is a criminal financial strategist without parallel. 

Remind you of anyone?

> Official Marvel announcement
> AP report on the story

Categories
Amusing

The Obama Transition in 2 Minutes

Categories
News

Barack Obama’s Weekly Video Address on YouTube

Notice how Barack Obama‘s weekly video address is now making use of YouTube’s new 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio. (The high quality version looks particularly good)

Categories
Amusing

Obama Undertakes Presidential Internship To Ease Concerns About His Lack Of Experience


Obama Undertakes Presidential Internship To Ease Concerns About His Lack Of Experience

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News

President-Elect Barack Obama in Chicago

The victory speech from Chicago.

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News

President Obama

Fox News reported. America decidedPresident Obama.

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News

The 2008 US Election Campaign in 3 Slate Videos

From the Conventions to the First Debate in Three Minutes

[ad]

From the First to the Last Debate in Four Minutes

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From the Last Debate to the Final Week in Two Minutes 

[ad]

> More videos at Slate
> Find out more about the 2008 US Election at Wikipedia
> Get the latest polling data at Electoral Vote, BBC News and the New York Times

Categories
Interesting Viral Video

Barack Obama’s 30 Minute Campaign Ad

This is the 30 minute campaign ad for Barack Obama that ran on most US TV networks last Wednesday.

Entitled Amercian Stories, American Solutions, it was directed by Davis Guggenheim, who also made the Al Gore documentary An Inconvenient Truth.

It was simulcast on NBCCBSFoxUnivisionMSNBCBET and TV One and Fox even asked for Game Six of the 2008 World Series to be delayed by 15 minutes in order to show it.

The ad got just over 30 million viewers across all the networks on which it aired and currently has 1,542,234 views on YouTube.

> Find out more about the Obama Campaign at Wikipedia
Davis Guggenheim at the IMDb

Categories
TV

Barack Obama on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

Barack Obama‘s recent appearance on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

UPDATE: 31/10/08: According to Variety’s Anne Thompson this appearence had a dramatic impact on The Daily Show’s ratings:

According to Comedy Central, last night’s Obama satellite interview “lifted The Daily Show with Jon Stewart to record levels,” they wrote in an email:

  • It was the most-watched and highest-rated episode in the show’s history, with 3.6 million total viewers and a 2.6 HHLD Rating.
  • This episode beat the October 8 prior most-watched episode record set by Michele Obama, by 700,000 total viewers.
  • The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” (October 29, 11:00 p.m. – 11:30 p.m)
  • 3.6 million total viewers
  • 2.2 million P18-49 viewers
  • 2.6 HHLD Rating
  • 2.0 P18-49 Rating
  • This is the first time The Daily Show has averaged more than 3 million viewers for a single episode.
  • The Daily Show outperformed its previous best by +22% (2.9 million viewers on October 8, 2008).
Categories
The Daily Video

The Daily Video: Google CEO Eric Schmidt on Barack Obama

Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google, talks about on Barack Obama‘s grasp of technology issues in his campaign for president.

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News

Colin Powell endorses Barack Obama

The former Republican Secretary of State Colin Powell was on NBC’s Meet The Press earlier this morning where he endorsed Barack Obama for president.

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The Daily Video

The Daily Video: The 3rd Presidential Debate in full

The full video of the 3rd presidential debate between Barack Obama and John McCain from C-Span.

Official site for the debates
More on the election at C-Span

Categories
The Daily Video

The Daily Video: The 2nd Presidential Debate in full

The full video of the 2nd presidential debate between Barack Obama and John McCain from C-Span.

> Official site for the debates
> More on the election at C-Span

Categories
Viral Video

Obama viral ad about John McCain’s Seven Houses

A clever viral ad from the Obama campaign called Seven that has already got over 600,000 views on YouTube since it was posted yesterday.

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Amusing The Daily Video

The Daily Video: Baracky II

Barack Obama‘s presidential campaign meets Rocky II.

> The Empire Strikes Barack (previous viral video about the Democratic primary campaign)
> More about the 2008 presidential campaign at Wikipedia

Categories
Amusing

Barack Obama vs Rick Astley

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Interesting News

Jeffrey Wells on The O’Reilly Factor

Hollywood Elsewhere blogger Jeffrey Wells went on The O’Reilly Factor yesterday to discuss a piece he’d written recently about Jon Voight‘s anti-Obama Washington Times op-ed piece.

> Wells looks back on the appearence at HE
> Voight’s original piece at the Washington Times
> Bill O’Reilly viral video from earlier this year

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Amusing The Daily Video Viral Video

The Daily Video: Paris Hilton responds to McCain campaign ad

You may have seen the rather tacky ad the John McCain camp issued recently, equating Barack Obama to a Paris Hilton-style celebrity unfit for the US Presidency.

Well, now Paris and the folks at FunnyOrDie have hit back with this response:

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

> Barack Obama and John McCain YouTube channels
> More on the 2008 US presidential election at Wikipedia

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Amusing Interesting News Viral Video

The 2008 Democratic Primary in 8 Minutes

Slate have come up with an ingenious video that somehow manages to compress the 2008 Democratic Primary into 8 minutes:

> Check out Slate’s previous video comparing Hilary Clinton to Tracy Flick from the 1999 movie ‘Election’
> Find out more about the 2008 Democratic Primary at Wikipedia
> More video at Slate

Categories
News

Tom Hanks endorses Barack Obama

Tom Hanks has recorded a thoughtful and eloquent endorsement for Barack Obama on his MySpace page:

Beware: Celebrity Endorsement

> Tom Hanks at MySpace
> Barack Obama’s official 2008 campaign site
> Find out more about the 2008 Democratic presidential primary at Wikipedia

Categories
Amusing Viral Video

The Empire Strikes Barack

Someone has created a very slick viral video that reimagines the Democratic presidential primary as The Empire Strikes Back.

> Find out more about the 2008 Democratic presidential primary at Wikipedia
> The Empire Strikes Back at the IMDb

UPDATE: It looks like it was created by a YouTube user called Humanitainment.