Entertainment

Obama Owes Him A Huge Thank You

by Kadeen Griffiths

Bradley Cooper is a secret genius. Well, maybe the secret part is a bit of an exaggeration considering he's fluent in French after spending half a year in France when he was in college, but he's adding another impressive skill to his resume: comedic brilliance. Or political machinations. Or some random combination of both. Whichever aspect of his genius brain led to him orchestrating Obama's appearance on Between Two Ferns really needs to be praised because it was one of the best episodes ever.

Obama's session with host Zach Galifianakis was more of a ping-pong match of insults than it was anything resembling a real interview — as always happens on the show — but they did devote some time to discussing the Affordable Care Act, despite Galifianakis's apparent disinterest in the subject. Afterward, the Obamacare website saw a 40 percent spike in traffic. And who do they have to thank? Bradley Cooper, apparently.

Cooper and his girlfriend Suki Waterhouse visited the White House in February for a state dinner in honor of French President Francois Holland, and he met with Obama senior adviser Valerie Jarrett while he was there. The two brainstormed ideas to boost the popularity of Obamacare and it was Cooper who decided that Between Two Ferns was the perfect platform for that. Which is understandable. The popular web show does for talk shows what The Colbert Show does for political pundit programs — mocks them in a way that a wider audience finds relatable and more approachable than the shows they're satires of.

Cooper called Galifianakis right there from the White House and we all saw the end result of that, both in the 20 million views the Funny or Die video has received and in the surge of traffic to the health care website, most of which came from Funny or Die. Whether or not he knew that Obama's appearance on Between Two Ferns would have such a great effect is unknown and he hasn't rushed forward to claim all the credit for Obamacare's success, but it's still an incredible accomplishment.

Of course, if Cooper really wanted to give Obamacare a boost, he could just try making a video of himself speaking French with subtitles directing viewers to the website. Anyone who says they wouldn't rush there immediately is lying to themselves.