It came as no surprise when the occupant of the White House was near the top of GQ magazine's list of “Least Influential People” for the third time in four years. After all, most of the Democratic candidates in the midterm elections pleaded with him not to campaign for them, and the party still lost control of the Senate while Republicans solidified their hold on the House.
“Another year, another round of people who took up vast clouds of oxygen, gave us back nothing of use, and probably helped accelerate the death of our planet,” columnist Drew Magary stated while introducing this year's list. “Here they are, in no particular order, although you'll probably assume we ranked them anyway.”
The only “person” to top the president in the list was Bono and his U2 band because they joined Apple to insert their new album into every iTunes library whether anyone wanted it or not.
If you didn't want Songs of Innocence, you had to ask Apple to send you specific instructions on how to remove what the band considered “this noble gift to The People” off your computer.
The columnist didn't hold back when it came to explaining why Obama was the second entry in the list:
Why are you still on Martha's Vineyard?! Missouri is BURNING. Putin is conquering Europe. The CDC is playing nude Twister with Ebola patients. U2 is forcing bad songs on everyone.
Are you even president anymore? When Obama got blasted for golfing shortly after ISIS beheaded journalist James Foley, he said, "I should've anticipated the optics." How do you win the presidency without knowing that golfing makes you look rich and indifferent?
Next up was Donald Sterling, whom Magary called a “racist/slumlord/pervert/nudist ex-NBA owner” whose girl friend recorded him saying “horrible [things] about black people” that caused him to crash and burn in 2014.
Coming in ninth place was the Cable News Network because it's “still looking for that f**king plane! Is it in the ocean? Did it travel to another dimension? WAS IT A ZOMBIE PLANE?! We need to put the folks at CNN out of their misery. I can get better news standing at a goddamn bus stop.”
When discussing the Secret Service, Magary imagined agents saying: "Welcome to the White House! Come right in! Would you care for a knife? Oh, you already have one! Marvelous. Private elevator rides with Obama are every hour on the hour, if you're interested.”
“Here's a crazy idea,” he then noted. “What if Johnny Depp played an actual human being -- one who could plausibly exist in real life? Not a dude living inside the Singularity. Not a rock-star pirate. Not a surrealist take on Hunter S. Thompson. An actual person. Can he even do that?”
Not surprisingly, Magary also hammered several Republicans. Referring to Texas governor Rick Perry, the columnist wondered: “Is he really gonna run for president again? Hasn't he heard himself talk? Doesn't he know he's under indictment?”
The GQ writer had to soften his blows for the governor of New Jersey:
Would it shock you to learn that the investigation Chris Christie commissioned into investigating Chris Christie (for Bridgegate) ended up exonerating Chris Christie?
Since the print publication of this list, Christie, in his capacity as chairman of the Republican Governors Association, helped decisively turn the midterm elections in the Republicans' favor, which makes him a bit more influential than we initially gave him credit for.
Magary saved some special barbs for Arizona senator John McCain, stating: “No matter what foreign policy stance the president takes, you can be certain that ol' Johnny Boy will be there to call him a pussy -- for either (a) not bombing people or (b) not bombing them enough.”
And such a list would apparently be incomplete without a slam on former GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin: “Some dude is reportedly calling her daughter a slut and a cunt, and the rest of her family is brawling at a kegger, and there's Sarah in the f**king limo, … probably Googling herself without a care in the world.”
The final item in the list was not a surprise: cops.
The whole point of having police officers is to maintain law and order, which means they become useless when they decide to arm themselves like a bunch of space soldiers in Halo, roam the streets, aim their rifles at everyone they see and choke out asthmatic black men.
This is bad police work! This is not how you police. We'd be better off arming our cops with lollipops.
As NewsBusters previously reported, Barack Obama has been in several recent lists, with the exception of 2012, when the magazine staff instead slammed his opponent, GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
