5 Times Barack Obama Lost His Sh*t in Public

This Saturday night, Barack Obama, the White House Correspondents Association, and a collection of celebrities will take part in the annual tradition roasting the president. President Obama himself has always been shockingly good as a comedian. His delivery is impeccable and he knows how to milk the most out of a joke. But he also has an interesting approach that is usually a bad idea for comedians. This week, the [Washington Post] (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/reliable-source/wp/2016/04/25/barack-obama-the-first-alt-comedy-president/) described it thusly:

"One stylistic tic, a student of Obama’s performances might note, is his tendency to laugh at his own jokes as he’s making them. Too much self-amusement is considered a no-no among comedians, but Obama, the pros say, makes it work. “He has this wry smile,” Agler said. “He 100 percent knows what he’s doing there.”

That quote comes in a long and interesting piece that tackles Obama's comic styling and ends up categorizing him as our first "alt-comedy president." That might be true, but to me it's as simple as this: Watching the president be so damn amused by his own jokes is intoxicating—and I could do it all day. The guy has the best laugh. I mean check out this recent event where he makes fun of Trump Steaks and Trump Wine.

Sure, he's making a substantive point, but that laugh? I mean how can you not swoon?

Here's Obama going in on Trump years ago on Leno. It's a pretty funny bit, but once he starts laughing at it himself?

It's like a super power to have a laugh this good. A charm secret weapon (that I have to imagine helps in diplomacy). In fact, I don't even have to imagine. Here's the President laughing at some private joke from Putin:

And sure, Putin's a monster, but I bet that laugh gives him pause when he's about to do some truly evil shit. Because no human being on the planet would want to prevent this laugh from happening as often as possible. And hell, it doesn't even have to be a full laugh! Just his bemused smile and a slight chuckle is next level great.

Even hecklers can't get through the charm offensive that is the Obama laugh:

With that laugh, bad jokes seem bad on purpose:

So, this weekend when he gets up to deliver his last correspondent's dinner monologue, I'm going to do what I do every weekend. Turn on C-SPAN for the first time this year and get ready to swoon.