Obama as Costanza, Looking to recover from his disastrous Wednesday debate performance,President Obama appears to be stealing a page from George Costanza’spublic relations playbook.Obama may have sleepwalked through last night’s debate, failing to answerany of Mitt Romney best attack lines, but at a rally in Denver today he was ready with some tart responses of his own. On Romney’s line about PBS and Big Bird, Obama shot back today, “Thank goodness somebody is finally getting tough on Big
Bird.” And on Romney’s line about Obama needing a new accountant, Obama said , “We know for sure it was not the real Mitt Romney because he seems to be doing just fine with his current accountant.”
This caused caused NBC NEws’ Chuck Todd to tweet: “Watching POTUS here in Denver, reminds me of when I lose an argument and come up w/better responses the next day.”
To which Pat Hynes responded: “Yeah, well the jerk store called.” – a reference to a 1997 episode of Seinfeld (clipped above) where Jason Alexander’s character, George Costanza, can’t think of a good comeback to a co-worker’s joke about his eating, “Hey George, the ocean called, they’re running out of shrimp.” Costanza then spends the rest of the episode plotting how to deliver his retort, “Well, the Jerk Store called, and they’re running out of you.”The comparison of Obama to Costanza quickly became a bipartisan twittermeme:
Slate’s Dave Weigel: At speech in Colorado, President Obama tells Americans that the jerk store has run out of Mitt Romney.
Mother Jones’ Adam Sewer: Shorter Obama today: “Oh yeah? Well the JERK STORE called, and they’re running out of YOU!”
MSNBC’s Chris Hayes: Obama at campaign event right now channeling George Costanza “Well the jerk store called…”
Mediaite’s Noah Rothman: Shorter Obama on Thursday morning to Romney: “Well, the jerk store called… and they ran out of you!”
Breitbart’s John Nolte: Like George Constanza’s “jerk store” quest, @BarackObama is now hitting Romney back … the day AFTER.
The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza: Obama hitting back today at all of Romney’s attacks last night is the ultimate Costanza “jerk store” moment.