At a 2008 Martin Luther King Jr Day parade in Jacksonville, Florida, then presidential candidate Mitt Romney  —  who infamously embarked on a 12-hour road trip in 1983 with his Irish Setter, Seamus, strapped to the roof of his station wagon  —  assembled a group of black teenagers for a photograph and then inexplicably barked the words to the circa-2000 hit Baha Men song “Who Let the Dogs Out” instead of saying something normal, like, you know, “Cheese!”

In 2016, Michelle Obama appeared in a CollegeHumor music video called “Go to College,” in which she raps around the White House alongside SNL’s Jay Pharoah, “If you wanna fly jets, / you should go to college / Reach high and cash checks, / fill your head with knowledge.” Then she actually solos: “South Side, Chicago / We all know / We had to do overtime every night / to make it tomorrow / And everyone could really make their dream true / Hey, kid, listenin’ in Michigan, / that could be you!” Comments for the video on YouTube have been perma-nently disabled.

The three top contenders for president in 2008 — Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John McCain — appeared in a message broadcast by World Wrestling Entertainment during Monday Night Raw, which Clinton opens by saying, “In honor of the WWE, you can call me Hill-Rod.” McCain asks, “Whatcha gonna do when John McCain and all his McCainiacs run wild on you? . . .  I’m gonna introduce Osama bin Laden to the Undertaker,” and Obama pronounces, “To the special interests who have been setting the agenda in Washington for too long, I’ve got one question: Do you smell what Barack is cooking?”