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"FacebookPinterestTimes Square Resize.jpg\n\nAfter so much fuss about \"stop-and-frisk\" and \"surveilling innocent muslims,\" it's good to see the NYPD getting back on everyone's good side by closing down the sidewalks at the nation's busiest pedestrian intersection.On the other hand, everyone secretly loves getting inconvenienced by the president: you get to tell all your Instagram followers how close you were to the center of the universe.\"City of Blinding Lights\" is not that great a song. U2 is not that great a band. It may be time to drop this from the rolls of political warm-up music.A good way to be accused of staging political theater? Stage a political event in a theater.If you're trying to not be a caricature of the One Percent, lady in the red suit, you should avoid sitting on your husband's lap in your opera box, waving your Chablis in the air like you're at a Michael Buble show.Those weren't real Secret Service agents flanking the stage. Those were actors playing Secret Service agents. Had to be. I mean, they didn't move at all. The entire time.Remember that friend in high school who was a little embarrassed about being so smart and not having to try? Bill Clinton was not that friend. He was the friend who wanted to talk about the Eurozone and how ironic it is that Romney is embracing austerity policy, precisely because he knows you're not quite following him. To wit:\n\nWho would have thought, after years and years, even decades, in which the Republican right attacked \"old Europe,\" that they would embrace the economic policies of the eurozone\u2014austerity and unemployment now at all costs. (Laughter.) I mean after all, their unemployment rate is 11 percent, and ours is 8\u2014we can get right up there if we just adopt their policies. (Laughter and applause.) You're laughing, but you need to tell people this.\n\nWhen Bill Clinton says tonight's event \"belongs to the president, and to you\" he may not totally be telling the truth.But give him this: he does an excellent job sitting on his designated stool and looking on with an expression of interest. (Tip: rest your index finger against your lips and squint.)OMG, Obama told this funny story about getting a fake mustache as a present, but you kinda had to be there, which I was and you weren't, so anyway, yeah, how was your night?For Democrats wanting to fall back in love, there may be nothing so powerful as when Obama and Clinton call each other by their first names.Scratch that: it's when Obama makes a winkingly casual reference to having a \"pretty good secretary of state.\" Bonkersville.Obama has suggested ending tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas, and giving those tax breaks to companies that create jobs right here in America at every event since he started running in 2007. Never with any further explanation.And that's not the only continuity to notice; Obama's stump speech last night was littered with retreads from the 2008 campaign. He actually closed with: \"It's still about hope and it's still about change.\" Which is less a line of inspiration\u2014though the crowd went nuts for it\u2014than it is a reminder that it's too late for Obama to hope to change what he stands for and what he represents. Yes, there is a lot of talk about how things are different this time: \"to a very real degree,\" as New York Magazine put it, \"2008's candidate of hope stands poised to become 2012's candidate of fear.\" Wrong: for better or worse, Obama is just going out there being Obama. So the question isn't how he'll present himself, but whether voters want another helping.Read more on Death Race 2012\n\n\"I'm sort of fatalistic ... It's in rich peoples' hands now\": The Last Days of The American Prospect?\n\nHunger Reads: Wisconsin Edition\n\nHunger Reads: A Superhero's Sidekicks\n\nVeep Reality Check with Mike Feldman\n\nFollow Reid Cherlin on Twitter for more updates from the campaign trail."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.gq.com/story/14-random-observations-about-last-nights-obama-clinton-buddy-tour>