Iblame John F Kennedy, although Reagan and his buddy Bonzo didn’t help. Arsenio Hall letting Clinton play the saxophone also turned out to be a bad precedent. But in my mind, it was really the Kennedys: John, Jackie, and Bobby, that screwed modern American politics for good. Ever since, we’ve had this fantasy that the president should be cool, likable, and even slightly glamorous. Obama was that for a lot of people. Young, fit, and culturally aware. Even he recognized that he was “the cool president.”
Now we think we’re voting for American Idol or the Next Top Model rather than the leader of the free world. It’s a bit of a joke. Just not a funny one.