Obama attempts ‘The Full Ginsburg’

Then President-elect Obama appears on NBC's Meet the Press in December 2008 (Scott Olson/Getty Images for Meet the Press)

Tomorrow, the President of the United States will try something never before accomplished. He will attempt to successfully  execute The Full Ginsburg.

The Full Ginsburg is the politically dangerous -some would say cursed- maneuver involving making appearances on five Sunday morning talk shows, all on the same day. Long seen as the political equivalent of ‘jumping the shark’, it’s been rarely tried – and never successfully accomplished.

The gambit was named after Monica Lewinsky’s lawyer, William Ginsburg, who was the very first to take a shot at television history by appearing on a record five Sunday morning shows on February 1, 1999. He was a man who had a special love for the television camera, a proclivity that resulted in his being fired and returned to obscurity a short time after attempting the the very first Full Ginsburg.

Next to go for it was John Edwards, vice-presidential candidate on the 2004 Democratic presidential ticket. Edwards appeared on five Sunday morning talkers in October of 2004, only to go down to defeat less than one month later.

In September of 2007, riding high as the presumed Democratic nominee for president, Hillary Clinton took her shot. At the time of her bid to become the first to navigate the The Full Ginsburg and come out the other side unscathed, Clinton looked like a sure thing to pull it off.  After all, she was leading a little known senator named Barack Obama by 22 points in the polls. Surely, she would be the one to break the curse.

We all know how that turned out.

Now, the president is throwing caution to the wind in the effort to persuade Americans that his health reform plan is the right one for the nation. Tomorrow morning, Obama will take the plunge as he tries to become the first to survive  The Full Ginsburg.

Political experts are concerned.

“More isn’t always more when it comes to a president’s words,” said former Clinton White House Press Secretary Dee Dee Myers. “This is something they need to start to be concerned about.”

Via Politico

Still, there is something a bit different about Obama’s tempting the fates.

CNN’s John King, host of “State of the Union” points out;

When you’re the President, you make them come to you. Ginsburg had to go to all five studios.

Maybe – but does it really matter where you place the oven? Overcooked is overcooked.