President Barack Obama read “Mean Tweets” on ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live Thursday night, but he was unfazed.
After enduring the routine, in which celebrities read hostile Twitter comments about themselves, Obama told Kimmel, “You should see what the Senate says about me.”
The president also joked about the perks and restrictions he faces, revealing that he’s not allowed to use cellphones that have recorders in them. (Hence his ever-present BlackBerry.) He also noted that he can visit the dentist in the White House basement but doesn’t text and can’t drive.
Kimmel asked if that was because you have to have a birth certificate to get a driver’s license.
Obama _ whom Kimmel introduced as the “first Kenyan-born Muslim Socialist ever elected president” _ deadpanned that Kenyans “drive on the other side” of the road.
With Sean Penn waiting in the wings, Obama said he was quite familiar with Penn’s 1982 coming-of-age comedy “Fast Times at Ridgemont High.”
“I lived it,” Obama said. “I didn’t just see it.”
Kimmel spared the president from questions about the latest controversy involving the Secret Service, although Kimmel’s security guard and sidekick, Guillermo Rodriguez, dressed in a full Secret Service getup of dark suit and sunglasses. The glasses, Kimmel joked, were simply hiding a hangover: “Secret cerveza.”
Obama‘s appearance on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” fulfilled a commitment the White House made after he had to postpone an appearance last year.
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