Six Degrees of President Obama
“Six degrees of separation between us and everyone else on this planet. The President of the United States, a gondolier in Venice, just fill in the names.” – Six Degrees of Separation
A very popular move in politics during elections is to abuse the six degrees of separation phenomenon, in which they try to connect any controversial figure to a candidate in order to pin them with a scandal. The smaller the degree, the better.
This strategy was especially notorious in 2008, when Barack Obama first ran for presidency. The first play involved Obama’s half-brother, Bernard, who converted to Islam. The British Sun tabloid labeled him as “Muslim Bernard” in order to insinuate that Obama may be tied to a potential terrorist. Shortly after, Times of London published an article about Obama’s other half-brother, Mark, who was living in southern China at the time. They described him as someone who “has been helping to promote cheap Chinese exports in a low-profile business career”.
However, when Barack Obama became featured on Time Magazine as the “Person of the Year”, the publication decided to use the theory to go a totally separate route, instead finding six degrees of separation between Obama and all other Persons of the Year before him: http://content.time.com/time/interactive/0,31813,1874522,00.html. Admittedly, some of the connections are very broad but it is very interesting to see how the president is related to some of the most obscure featured winners, some of which are the “Personal Computer”, the “Endangered Earth”, and “You”.
http://www.thecenterlane.com/?p=66
http://content.time.com/time/interactive/0,31813,1874522,00.html