I’m not nearly there yet, but there are those in my family who I know spend their retirement years doing things they wish they could have done while they were working.
My mom has taken up world traveling. My dad took up genealogy. My uncle moved to the mountains of North Carolina and pursued his love of sports cars. I know people who’ve spent the time with grandkids, with parasailing, with philatelism or with more expensive hobbies like golf and divorce.
Barack Obama, apparently, has spent his retirement years binge-watching “South Park.”
I know, sounds weird. But it’s the only explanation I can come up with for the former president’s tone while campaigning for the current Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris.
Between January of 1997, which was when a young Obama began his ascent through the electoral politics machine as a member of the Illinois state Senate, to January of 2017, when the term-limited 44th president left the White House, he’d fashioned himself as a cool, demure presence at all times. Now, there’s no higher office for him to attain — unless he wants to convert to Roman Catholicism and try his hand at becoming Pope Barack I someday. (As if the Vatican needed a shift any further to the left…)
And he was a busy man during those years, after all. When “South Park” went on the air in August of 1997, he had more pressing things to do than watch Stan, Kyle, Kenny and Cartman find new and innovative ways to lower the maturity bar on adult-themed animation.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m a “South Park” admirer — but I can’t help notice the coincidence between the timing of the show’s inception, the timing of Obama’s career, and the new Barack Obama, one prone to making jokes like this:
Obama: Or diapers. I remember buying diapers. Do you think Donald Trump ever changed a diaper?
Supporter: His own!
Obama: I almost said that, but I decided I should not say it. pic.twitter.com/iaUj89I2DD
— Acyn (@Acyn) October 10, 2024
Are you voting for Trump?
Yes, he almost said that Donald Trump changed his own diapers, but he didn’t! Haha. Hilarious! See, it was someone else’s bit of potty humor, not his. Har har!
According to the U.K. Daily Mail, the viral moment came during an appearance at the University of Pittsburgh on Thursday night as Obama stumped for Harris in the most vital of swing states, Pennsylvania.
Now, of course, if you’re going to get scatological about old people, perhaps that’s not the best joke to cosign when you picked Joseph Robinette Biden as your running mate and were endorsing him as ready to serve another term as recently as July.
As one social media user shot back, “Obama would know about changing diapers. He does for Joe.” Nor was that person the only one to make such a remark:
The first thing I thought of was Joe Biden.
— Dr. Carol M. Swain (@carolmswain) October 11, 2024
Others said the former president should focus less on gross-out humor and more on serious subjects: “Obama is out of touch with the American people. Their interest is the cost of living,” they wrote.
And then there were the offended, because of course some people were: “They go low and we go low. Sad that a lot of adults do have to wear and change their own diapers. Really sad that Obama would stoop that low.”
Look, I don’t know about the continence of either the 81-year-old Biden or 78-year-old Trump (and don’t want to), but the verbal continence of Obama, discovering his inner juvenile at age 63, is certainly slipping.
Take, for instance, this moment from his speech at the Democratic National Convention in which he talked about Donald Trump and “crowd sizes.” Nudge nudge, wink wink.
Obama appears to make crude hand gesture while describing Trump’s ‘weird obsession’ with crowd sizes https://t.co/eevmLBwJcW pic.twitter.com/0kwgStLvTJ
— New York Post (@nypost) August 21, 2024
Yes, I see what you did there. Ha. Ha. Hilarious. Did I mention this was his Democratic National Convention speech, for Pete’s sake?
Really, the only thing that would make the “South Park”-ification of Barack Obama complete is if he decided to do a karaoke version of “Blame Canada” on the campaign trail. Or actually be funny.
Because, you know, “South Park” is more than occasionally funny. And this isn’t. At all.
Maybe give philatelism a try. That’s all I’m saying, Barack. The potty humor gig isn’t working out for you.
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