Dissecting the Weirdest Parts of Marc Maron's Interview with President Obama

President Obama recently sat for an interview with Marc Maron for the comedian's WTF podcast, which he hosts out of his garage. Observing that WTF stands for "What the Fuck," people who would like Obama taken down a peg no doubt listened hungrily for the president to say something at least borderline offensive.

There weren't any such gaffes. Obama will likely not even have to comment on Fox News's pearl-clutching segment about the part of the interview where he used the n-word.

But it was a big moment for the medium of podcasting, signaling the further ascendancy of podcasters as important contributors to the discourse. That'll be interesting to watch, because podcasters, Maron included, tend to conduct weird, rudderless interviews. And even without a major gaffe, this one was weird and rudderless.

For instance, when President Obama got going about his early college days in LA, Maron risked sounding a little overeager when it came to bringing up a black comedian…

In his memoir, Dreams from My Father, Obama wrote "I sure could curse like Richard Pryor." That little nugget of information is pretty important to understanding why Maron chose to compare Obama to Pryor.

Immediately afterward, Obama bantered like a champ as Maron jumped in with his thoughts on reinventing yourself as a young rebel.

Sure, Obama's brief brush with leather jackets and coffee doesn't quite measure up to Maron's serious battle with addiction. But they both struggle with nicotine to this day. They're practically cousins!

Here, Obama seemingly turned the tables, trying to relate with Maron on how this moment fits in with how he expected his life to turn out:

Nobody could imagine it? Granted, the part about being president is hard to imagine when you're in college, but talking to a comedian in a nearby garage? That seems pretty easy for any college student to imagine.

The substance of the interview consisted of Maron trying to give listeners a rare glimpse of a seated president's humanity, while Obama—fully knowing this was meant to be fun—struggled to dial his stump-speech module from 100 percent down to 95.

For instance, Maron ventured out on a limb with a provocative premise, and Obama couldn't completely go along with it, so he just said "right" five times while Maron spoke:

After watching Maron drift a little, maybe the candor-inducing magic of his garage kicked in, because Obama drifted from that question about race and poor people, to the touchy topic of drones, before bringing things back around to the "middle management premise":

Toward the end, Maron very tentatively asked the president about fun:

Maron's "yeah?" sounded a bit dejected, as if he were saying, "Oh, you don't do anything fun, not that you'll mention anyway." If the president raced slot cars or something, we probably would have heard that by now.

Obama kept talking about his kids. Maron didn't sound thrilled.

After "Are they?" Maron laughed, and muttered something like "All right, come on," like Obama might say "OK, yes. They're awful." It's a comedy podcast, and this question had the greatest potential for levity. Maron sounded disappointed.

But interviewing a president isn't a recipe for laughs. Still, Obama admitted that he does more in his free time than just watch his kids grow up:

There wasn't much more time after this bit to dig into Obama's frustration about aging. They had to close off the interview by talking about which comedians Obama likes. Answer: Louis CK, which he pronounced "Louis," not "Louie." What a gaffe!

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