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Politics

Would Obama Kiss Justin Bieber to Promote Healthcare.gov?

Nick Gillespie | 3.30.2014 9:24 AM

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Saturday Night Live parodied the lengths to which President Barack Obama has gone to sell his signature health care program, whose enrollment deadline is kinda/sorta this Monday. Cue Kim Khardashian, Harry Styles, and Justin Bieber.

Watch as hilarity—or is it simply reality?—ensues.

Meanwhile, presidential advisor Valerie Jarrett is in Hollywood trying to get creative types to put the wonders of mandatory insurance into their sitcoms, movies, and dramas:

"That's the cool thing," a host said to the presidential advisor. "You've been reaching out to people that are, you know, outside of the norm of what the president might work with. Who else are you working with? Like celebrities, personalities, things like that?"

"You name it," said Jarrett. "That's part of why I'm in L.A. I'm meeting with writers of various TV shows and movies to try to get it into the scripts." When Jarrett says "it into the scripts," she's referring to getting references to Obamacare, the president's signature legislation, into the scripts of TV shows and movies.

More here.

Anyone else remember the (righteous!) outrage over the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) getting involved in pushing drug-war messaging in TV and movies?

Update: "Obama Earns Money For U.S. By Appearing In Japanese Television Commercial"

Hat Tip: Yair Rosenberg's Twitter feed.

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Nick Gillespie is an editor at large at Reason and host of The Reason Interview With Nick Gillespie.

PoliticsNanny StateWar on DrugsCultureCivil LibertiesPolicyObamacareBarack ObamaDrugsHealth Care
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