Stu Rothenberg's column today was an interesting one. He notes:

For the national media, Barack Obama isn't merely the president of the United States. He's so much more than that.

Obama is a celebrity, and he and his family are covered that way. That means there is a heavy focus on the personal, making Obama the first "Entertainment Tonight president."

Rothenberg goes on to compare the White House operation to the HBO show Entourage, even likening Robert Gibbs to Turtle. Ouch.

He notes correctly that the White House is cultivating this celebrity image.

In encouraging all of the celebrity coverage (journalists don't need much encouragement given the public's apparent unquenchable need for gossip), the White House surely is trying to keep Obama's appeal high among those Americans who really don't care a great deal about politics.

Being celebrities gives the Obamas a bigger audience, and probably deeper emotional commitments, than many politicians receive. Even if the economy doesn't recover completely and Obama's policy proposals stir up opposition, he could retain his popularity - and, with it, political clout on Capitol Hill - because of his (and his family's) celebrity coverage and appeal.

Like the title indicates, I think the Obama White House is looking to chase down that elusive Kennedy Cool. For some reason, Democrats can't seem to resist this - despite the fact that Kennedy's domestic agenda was stalled in Congress. Nevertheless, both Bill Clinton and John Kerry actively worked to be Kennedyesque.

Obama has been more successful at it. Whether or not this is a good thing is an open question - one which I am inclined to answer in the negative. I think Rothenberg is stretching when he says that Obama's celebrity marketing could help him retain his popularity if the economy stays in the tank. (More broadly, this shouldn't be taken as a good thing, should it? If he does a bad job, but remains popular because of his many covers on Rolling Stone, isn't that bad for democratic accountability?) I also do not think this marketing strategy is going to generate "deeper emotional commitments." After all, the celebrity culture is fundamentally shallow. Actors, musicians and the miscellaneous "hot messes" who are the focus of it are treated like disposable commodities - the public pays attention until they get bored, then they unsympathetically move on to the next hot mess.

What inclines me to fall on the negative side of the ledger is not the Kennedy mystique/celebrity image per se. It's a political marketing strategy that is as good (and phony) as any other. My objection is that times have changed - and not even somebody as powerful as the President can change it back. There is now a mass market for all things celebrity, which means the President has to inhabit the Cool Space with things that are, I think, a bit beneath the office. See the following picture, which I saw while shopping last night:

The President and the First Lady are sharing cover space with: (a) Brangelina; (b) irresponsible dieting and unattainable body images; (c) Britney. To me, this is at least a few degrees off the Kennedy Cool. Kennedy got the cover of Life magazine. Obama gets to share InTouch with a lady in a bikini. Not as awesome.

Call it the nature of the age. Everybody loved the Kennedy Cool, and the Hollywood Cool, and the Rock 'n' Roll Cool. So it was mass marketed, and the strategic reps of ambitious celebrities intentionally manipulate it, working in collusion with big media corporations looking to maximize circulation and/or viewership. And then you see Mario Lopez on Extra! and you realize...cool jumped the shark a long time ago. These days, Bob Dylan - one of the original cool guys - is wearing a pork pie hat and singing in a bluesy rasp about the great beyond. That should tell us something.

When a President's job approval is well above 50%, as Obama's currently is, he can do no wrong. Every move he makes is brilliant. Every word he utters is genius. But when that number trends toward 50% or lower - as it inevitably does for every President who serves a full term (unless you're Dwight Eisenhower and won a war!) - the knives come out, as your political opponents, who have not disappeared but are lying in wait, sense an opening. And it seems to me that this is one area where Obama could be vulnerable.

Remember this?

Simply because Obama won the election does not mean that this line of attack is buried forever. Republicans believe - correctly, I think - that this spot damaged the President last summer. A variant of this could be resurrected next cycle. Imagine an ad that blasts the President for posing for his buddy Jann Wenner's Us Weekly instead of working to create jobs. Unfair? Yes. Manipulative? Sure...but more, less, or as manipulative as the Obamas talking "pregnancy news" to a $2.99 grocery store celeb rag?