Comedian Chris Rock admits that while he has met with President Obama a couple of times, he’s not actually that cool.
“Kind of cool,” Rock admitted when asked about his opinion of the president by Frank Rich of New York Magazine. “I always say, cooler than most politicians, not as cool as actual cool people. He’s not cool like Jay Z’s cool. He’s not Eddie Murphy.”
Rock admitted that Obama’s initial hype had diminished, signaling that he was not very impressed by his presidency.
“I’m trying to figure out the right analogy. Everybody wanted Michael Jordan, right? We got Shaq. That’s not a disappointment. You know what I mean? We got Charles Barkley,” he said.
Although Rock hinted that Obama had not been the greatest president, he admitted that in many ways it was just part of the job.
“The president should be graded on jobs and peace, and the other stuff is debatable,” he said. “Do more people have jobs, and is there more peace? I guess there’s a little more peace. Not as much peace as we’d like, but I mean, that’s kind of the gig. I don’t recall anybody leaving on an up. It’s just that kind of job.”
When comparing Obama to Bush, Chris Rock said that Bush was lucky because people thought he was dumb, making it easier for him to impress people.
“Obama started as a genius. It’s like, What? I’ve got to keep doing that? That’s hard to do!” he said. “So it’s not that Obama’s disappointing. It’s just his best album might have been his first album.”
He joked that Obama spent too much time cleaning up after Bush, and probably should have just let the country crash for a while.
“Just let the country flatline. Let the auto industry die. Don’t bail anybody out,” he joked, comparing Obama to a new sports team owner.
“Maybe Obama should have let the plane crash. You get credit for bringing somebody back from the dead,” he joked. “You don’t really get credit for helping a sick person by administering antibiotics.”