Pop-Culturally Illiterate

I’m watching VH1’s Presidential Pop Culture Quiz right now and they just asked Wesley Clark the following questions :

  • What boy band was Justin Timberlake in?
  • What is “bling-bling”?
  • What is Eminem’s real name?
  • Who wrote the Harry Potter books?

    Unlike Joe Liberman, Clark didn’t get any of those questions right (He actually thought Justin Timberlake was a member of the Beach Boys). He was able to give a long, detailed answer to the question “What is a meterosexual?”, but to no avail.

    Tonight he’s dropped out of the race.

    Lesson : If you wanna be President, watch more TV.

    [Update : I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried. Kucinich is apparently an amateur ventriliquist. Why the hell didn't he pull out his little buddy during one of the debates and give us a little "Who you callin' a dummy?" routine?? If he had done that, the nomination would be his now.]


    • posted by greg on February 10, 2004 @ 10:44 pm

    3 comments

    1. You know normally, I’m inclined to think that our obsession with testing out a politician’s knowledge of pop culture is stupid. Who cares what Wesley thinks about boy bands when I’m more concerned about what he might think of US energy independence, outsourcing, and tax policy.

      However, I’m reminded that people out of touch with pop culture also tend to be easily persuaded to fear and mistrust it – Then we get BS like Joementum boy, bitching like a good republican would, about violence and sex in movies, thus successfully distracting us from issues that actually matter in commanding the ship of state. You know, like not being crippled when the oil starts to run out, or not allowing the rich to loot the country.

      Therefore, all candidates should subscribe to at least 3 pop culture mags, and then, they need to be required to read the Baffler, for sensible perspective of course.

      Comment by The Eligible Ross Lincoln — February 11, 2004 @ 1:27 pm

    2. couldn’t you just see clark and lieberman playing grand theft auto III together?

      Comment by josh — February 11, 2004 @ 1:52 pm

    3. You know normally, I’m inclined to think that our obsession with testing out a politician’s knowledge of pop culture is stupid.

      To Kerry’s credit, he was annoyed by the whole thing. The exchange was something like this :

      HOST : Thanks for giving us a few minutes. I’ve got this short pop quiz that all the other candidates have taken…

      KERRY : Oh, I hate it when you guys do these things.

      HOST : This isn’t like asking you the price of a dozen eggs or anything.

      KERRY : I know, it’s just that these things seem so…oh whatever.

      And then when Kerry was asked the questions, he aced it. He was able to quickly answer every question correctly (which none of the other candidates could do).

      The other highlight that I didn’t mention was Dean’s glee at the prospect that being president might allow him to get the Fugees to reunite.

      Comment by greg — February 11, 2004 @ 2:36 pm

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