Pseudo Christmas Cheer?

Recently, an interesting story has caught my attention. The Obama Administration, who have peppered the people with a never-ending array of media since Obama's inaguration, distributed 800 ornaments to be decorated by over 60 community organizations across the USA. The theme was American Landmarks, and the finished products were displayed on the White House Christmas tree of 2009.

Chancellor Avenue School in Newark was responsible for decorating 10 of the ornaments. On the December 16, 2009 episode of The John Stewart Show (which is a whole separate type of pseudo craziness in itself), "reporter" Samantha Bee attempted to uncover the dark side of the issue. The title of the skit was "Obama's Socialist Christmas Ornament Program," and the show was trying to illustrate that the Obama Administration was attempting to turn Americans into socialists by first influencing the youth. We've heard this type of accusation against Obama before. I wanted to write a bit about how I feel the Christmas decoration idea was a good one, and how it was a pseudo-event that gained President Obama and his family even more media attention.

The Obama Administration, in my opinion, was trying to unite people within the country. Americans were given the opportunity to think about famous landmarks, and create something to pay tribute to them. The Administration was also, of course, looking for more publicity. And why not? Obama has played a different game than any other President before him since taking office. This is a time when technology is changing and evolving rapidly, and he intelligently realized he needed to hop onto the band wagon. People will continue to discuss a media issue until something else happens. One strategy to combat that is to introduce new information all the time. People rapidly move onto the new issue. Obama gets this.

I believe a festive idea like this was incredibly smart. American people were able to tell their friends and family that they decorated an ornament which sat on the White House Christmas tree. That's pretty cool. If he sent me an ornament, you bet I would spend time decorating it and send it back. People also had the opportunity to use their creativity, and express themselves. The fact that there was division regarding this issue only further proves its effectiveness. People were talking about it. They were telling others about it, blogging about it, and reading about it.

To watch the clip from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, follow this link:
http://watch.thecomedynetwork.ca/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart/full-episodes/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart---december-16-2009/#clip246091. Just don't take it too seriously...