Last night Andy Rooney actually carped that the names of the 2008 hopefuls weren’t presidential enough. And by that he meant not Aryan enough—neither Nordic nor British enough. “Both Roosevelt and Jefferson had names that sounded presidential,” Rooney said. “I like that…. Do you think the name ‘Barack Obama’ compares to ‘Abraham Lincoln’ or ‘Mike Huckabee’ to ‘George Washington’?... If Rudolph Giuliani had been our first president, do you think Washington would be called ‘Giuliani’? ‘Giuliani DC’?”
Maybe all this could be passed off as mere “pondering” if Rooney hadn’t launched into his commentary with the words, “When you look at our political system and the way we do things in this country you have to wonder why we’re doing as well as we are.” Not to mention that this is Andy Rooney—CBS’s notorious curmudgeon. He speaks only to criticize. It’s sad to see this voice of reason from my childhood fall off his rocker, but seriously, why is this guy still on air? Are we supposed to find his senility disguised as social commentary cute? I mean, geez. When you look at the way we do things in this country you have to wonder why we’re doing as well as we are.
--Francesca Mari