Do put a sock in it, Macca, there’s a lovable moptop!

Sir Paul McCartney performed for The President of the United States and the First Lady at the White House last week. Why the elected leaders of a republic feel the need to act like monarchs by inviting megastars to perform at their “court” baffles me.

Is it so that, when they’ve retired and are sitting by the fire in one of their simple, “just folks”, God-fearin’ 20-room mansions, the Prez can say “Hey, Mickey, Remember when Paul McCartney sang for us that time? He sang ‘Michelle’ just for you. Weren’t that sump’n?” “Certainly was, Barry,” Michelle replies, then sighs wistfully. “Happy days!” Barack gives a shake of his now grizzled head “Happy days indeed, Micky. You know, moments like that made it all worthwhile.”

Or are they just grubby photo-ops for dismally failing Presidencies?

I’m guessing the latter, given McCartney’s eagerness to tick off an American public rapidly tiring of Obama’s ineptness: “I’m a big fan, he’s a great guy. So lay off him, he’s doing great.” Macca went on to display some of that famous Beatlesque humour. Upon receiving a prize from the Library of Congress (presumably for being very rich and successful) he added, “ After the last eight years, it’s great to have a president who knows what a library is.” 

I bet George Bush is now wishing he’d invited Sir Paul to perform at the White House, but his failure to do so might just have been because The Beatles never recorded a song featuring the name “Laura”. (Ringo wrote one for With the Beatles which began “She’s really gear, Laura/And I’m really pinin’ for her/But I always seem to bore her/And she’s a terrible snorer”- but it was rejected at the last moment.)

Quite what an Englishman is doing ordering  the current American President’s myriad critics to, hey, like, you, cut the guy some slack  – or, indeed, making a tawdry, insulting, inaccurate and deeply unfunny remark about his predecessor – is a mystery: it’s really none of his bloody business, far as I can see. Maybe the name Obama chose to go with in College – Barry – sounds sufficiently Liverpudlian to make our sentimental old moptop feel a certain kinship. But then again, Bush was a George, and his Harrisonesque first name doesn’t appear to have endeared him to Mr. Yesterday. 

I can only hope that Americans who don’t think Bazza is doing a particularly good job – i.e. the vast majority – are collecting together McCartney’s records and CDs for a bonfire to signal their displeasure at a foreign multimillionaire non-dom actually thinking he has the right to tell them what to think. (Mind you, it’d be a pretty meager bonfire, these days.)

And, given who he married following the death of his first wife, I’m not sure many of us would trust McCartney’s instincts when it came to picking winners.

What gives entertainers the notion that they have the right to tell us little people how to think or vote?  

Damned cheek!