Obama tells Oprah politics distorted by reality TV

CHICAGO—US President Barack Obama bemoaned what he sees as the infiltration of reality television into the national political debate in America in comments on the Oprah Winfrey Show aired Monday.

In a program taped last week on the day the White House released his long form birth certificate, Obama told Winfrey, “The line between entertainment and politics has blurred.”

“Reality TV is seeping into how we think about our politics. When I am reading letters at night about families who are at risk of losing their homes or are describing to me what it is like when they send out 16 resumes and they don’t get a response back, and they are trying to figure out how they are going to pay their bills, it is not reality TV.

“That is real and that is what we have to spend some time on.”

Obama became the first sitting US president to appear on Oprah. He was joined by First Lady Michelle Obama in one of the show’s final episodes as Winfrey prepares to wrap up production later this month.

Winfrey made her sole political foray at the outset of the 2008 campaign when she endorsed Obama for president and subsequently campaigned for him.

The influential TV host referred to the “Eyes on the Prize” documentary that focused on the civil rights movement and asked whether the American people had lost the idea of what the “prize” is today.

Obama responded, “I don’t think the American people have lost their sense in terms of what the prize is, but in terms of our collective political conversation, I think we get distracted all the time.”

The First Lady added, “What I have always loved about my husband is that he has always been a person who can keep his eyes on the prize in the midst of some craziness. That is what makes him special.”

The birth certificate issue popped up recently because New York real estate mogul Donald Trump, himself a reality TV host, joined the chorus of those who doubted whether Obama was actually born in Hawaii in 1961.

Obama admitted he was at first amused by the controversy, but the first lady said she was not.

“This came up 2-1/2 years ago,” the president said. “I didn’t take it too seriously. This is kind of a silly thing. But we still posted what the state of Hawaii provides which is a certification of live birth, which is essentially a copy of the live birth certificate.

“It seemed unlikely that my 18-year-old mother had plotted at the time that he is going to be president so let’s pay off the newspapers. We assumed this would go away.”