海角大神

BuzzFeed got President Obama to make a . In it he uses a hand-held camera extender known as a selfie stick, makes a 鈥渢hanks, Obama鈥� joke when his cookie won鈥檛 fit in a glass of milk, and mugs in front of a strangely dirty mirror.

He tries on sunglasses, makes 鈥測ou鈥檙e looking good鈥� gestures, and so forth. Also, he plays pretend basketball in the White House. We鈥檙e pretty sure that the setup in his mind is, last-second shot, President Obama drives hard over Vladimir Putin, sinks the reverse layup for the win.

Why is he doing this? That鈥檚 a good question. No, he鈥檚 not looking at joining GloZell as a YouTube comedian after his term in office is over. He鈥檚 doing it because he gets in a long plug for signing up for coverage under the , aka 鈥淥bamacare.鈥� The deadline for enrollment is Feb. 15 鈥� three days away.

This isn鈥檛 the first time the president has used an unusual video appearance (or debased himself, depending on your point of view) to promote ACA sign-ups. Last year at the end of the extended sign-up period, he shot a segment of 鈥淏etween Two Ferns,鈥� a satirical talk show hosted by Zach Galifianakis.

During that one, Mr. Galifianakis's character asked Mr. Obama whether Tonya Harding or Hulk Hogan would be a better US ambassador to Syria. So it was pretty strange, too.

We鈥檙e guessing that, in terms of marketing, this approach must be working, at least in the eyes of White House officials. Otherwise, they wouldn鈥檛 have run the president out again for a video that they know will drive many Republicans nuts.

And the BuzzFeed numbers look pretty good. The video had about 2.6 million views in its first two hours. Gulp. That鈥檚 a good year for some Web-based pundits.

Of course, the biggest challenge facing Obamacare right now isn鈥檛 enrollment. It鈥檚 the US Supreme Court, which may strike down many of its tax subsidies for lower-income participants, depending on whether they sign up through state-run or federal-run marketplace 鈥渆xchanges.鈥� But that鈥檚 another story.

The selfie-stick video will produce at least one thing for sure: polarization. Critics will hate it. Some on the right already dub Obama the 鈥淵OLO (You Only Live Once) President,鈥� charging that he鈥檚 just phoning in his last years in office. They鈥檒l say it demeans the office of the president, will make Obama look weak overseas, and so forth.

The right-leaning Twitchy site is compiling a pretty good list of complaints of this sort.

鈥淪orry, world. The president can鈥檛 talk right now. He鈥檚 too busy with his selfie stick,鈥� Twitchy.

Obama鈥檚 supporters, meanwhile, will say that it鈥檚 unlikely the video is more demeaning than, say, the time Ronald Reagan walked around with Minnie and Mickey Mouse at Disneyland.

Anticipating this sort of debate, Philip Bump of "The Fix" blog at the Washington Post has already gone through and the video鈥檚 images in the order in which they diminish the presidency. Spoiler alert: The selfie stick is only number seven.

The point here is that the presidency has become a polarized, and polarizing, office. The parties themselves are more ideologically sorted than ever before. Their appeal, and the appeal of their candidates, is deeply partisan.

鈥淚n this era, presidents are dividers, not uniters,鈥� Brendan Nyhan, a Dartmouth political scientist, in the New York Times late last year.

So the outcome of any debate about the propriety of the selfie-stick video is virtually predetermined. Right-leaning opponents will see it as the decline of the West. Left-leaning supporters will see it as clever marketing. There won鈥檛 be much in the way of middle ground.