The selfie president

He’s done it again. He stepped onto the stage and made a spectacle of himself, shocking the nation. No, I’m not talking about Kanye West at the Grammy Awards. It was President Obama, the man you would think knows better, given his unflattering words for the rap star.

The day after we had to evacuate the U.S. Embassy in Yemen, the White House released a playful video on BuzzFeed titled “Things Everybody Does but Doesn’t Talk About.” It features the president goofing in front of a mirror; using trendy expressions like “Yolo [You only live once], man”; and taking multiple selfies using a selfie stick. It was intended to grab the attention of young people and send them to HealthCare.gov to sign up for Obamacare before the Feb. 15 deadline. But the Yemen retreat was a national humiliation. Here was America, not al-Qaeda, on the run. Under orders from either the State Department or the Defense Department, U.S. Marines had to destroy their personal weapons and fly out by commercial airliner, presumably the reason they had to travel unarmed. It was also humiliating for the White House in particular, or should have been, because Obama had described Yemen as an example of his success in fighting international terror. The next day he seemed not to have a care in the world.

Not only were these images of the president fooling around poorly timed, given our disintegrating capacity under his leadership to address a collapsing world order, they seemed all the more dissonant when we discovered that he filmed the scenes the same day he learned that ISIS had killed Kayla Mueller, an American aid worker the terrorist group captured in Syria.

Obama has shown a pattern of insensitivity on these matters. It’s as though he just doesn’t care. He went before the nation to express his sadness and outrage over the beheading of American journalist James Foley, only to split from the news conference straight for the golf course, where he continued his fun and games with friends. In this latest incident, the selfies say it all.

As we celebrate Presidents Day, we’re reminded that the presidency is a serious calling, a high office with awesome power, entrusted to very few people. There is no higher honor or more demanding task than to govern a nation justly and faithfully. The U.S. president heads a sprawling bureaucracy that is difficult to monitor and manage even for the most attentive chief executive. The state of the world turns on his decisions and indecisions. The job is well paid and it comes with a nice house, a personal chef, and a fancy jet. But you are always on call and always in the public eye. It weathers the face and turns dark hair gray, but the ordeal lasts no more than eight years. It’s a sprint, not a marathon.

The president does need down time, and golf really is relaxing. It’s hard to coordinate golf and vacation time with unexpected world crises, but some days you have to cancel your round or cut your vacation short. And a light-hearted promotional video for an important and struggling program seems like a good idea, but not for the president, given his politically sensitive position and grave responsibilities.

But perhaps the president who is trying to appeal to self-absorbed young voters by behaving like one finds seeing himself in a cool video just irresistible.