Not even a comic book? There have been TF comic books just as long as there’ve been TF toys. Hell, the entire Transformers storyline was originally derived by Marvel Comics because Hasbro wanted a stronger hook than “stuff that turns into robots” to apply to the toys they were importing from Japan’s Takara. A lot of the things that happen with Sam Witwicky in the movie are lifted from things that happened to Buster Witwicky 25 years ago in the original comics.
None of this changes the actual text of the movie, so no.
They didn’t have to call him “President Obama.” That was a delieberate choice.
For a reason already specified…why do you think that the mere utterance of his name suggests a political message?
Because Bay could have given the president a fictitious name and deliberately chose not to.
They didn’t show him as a coward. 
The only thing I can remember even pertaining to the President (besides Jon Voight being very loud about getting the Pres to safety) was the shot of his feet and him asking the stewardess for some Ding Dongs. In TF1, it was portrayed as a very serious and necessary thing to get the President to safety, even though they did make him personally look a little goofy.
T2 = Terminator 2
So it is and so it shall always be.
And so it’s now a given that there were political reasons for this, even in light of the aforementioned Bay interview?
It certainly gives a real world political message to the text, whether it was intentional or not.
Then that means the current discussion is quite different from your OP, as anything you’ve inferred from the movie is practically entirely subjective.
This has to be the first cafe thread that stands a good chance of being shifted over to GD.
Like I said earlier , I cant see O being unfortunately assailed on screen for being a coward. A carrier had just been sunk and thats about 6 thousand casualties right off the bat, and various citys were under assault from Decepticons. First thing the secret service would have done was to shuffle his ass off to what ever mountain redoubt he goes to.
What I did think was that the story took a big swipe at Gen X,Y, and Z. What with Sam’s new room mate , who clearly resembles a dot com boy from the nineties or the aughts, has a freak out session and admits it , all to have one of the twins call him a pussy, lol.
Declan
And you’ll note that in T2, President Obama was not shown as being willing or capable of fighting the T-1000 at any point during the movie. Ultra Right Wing James Cameron!
Obama is mentioned by name I think once in the entire movie, and that is a reference to him being moved into a secure shelter, same as they did with the President in TF1, same as they did with the President in Independence Day (and he was the fricking hero in that movie). The fact that President Obama did not show any inclination or capability to fight 80 foot tall robots is.. well.. I’m inclined to give him a pass on that one.
The government flunkie in the movie mainly seemed to be passing on the concern from the President that the Decepticons might be coming to Earth specifically because that’s where the Autobots were (Optimus Prime did, after all, send out an evidently unencrypted broadcast message inviting the Autobots to regroup on Earth whilst they were fighting a war with the Decepticons, who previously had only been shown to be present on Earth because they were trying to find the AllSpark, which they had reason to believe had been destroyed since then.)
Sure, the Flunkie ran his mouth off about all their secret arrangements over a secure line that turned out to be hacked into by the Decepticons, but hey, it was a secure line and that’s what you have them for. The fact that they didn’t have a means of detecting when their communications security had been compromised was, frankly, not his fault or responsibility. And yeah, I was glad to see him get tossed out of the plane.
Also, the movie shows the military as competent, if somewhat outclassed, in fighting the Decepticons (their best strategy is to get the Autobots to distract the Decepticons, then to move in and pile on with overwhelming hairy ape firepower). That said, I have concerns about some of Major Lennox’s bigger strategic calls, like taking the AllSpark into a heavily populated city knowing the Decepticons wanted to take it in the first movie. So it’s not like the movies only makes Democrat civilian gov’t types look stupid.
I had read a thread like this before seeing the movie, so when I watched it I was on the lookout for jabs at Obama. The only one I noticed was his name dropped briefly in one of those news-montage segments. This is so standard in movies it’s probably on TV tropes: insert something easily dubbed and topical into a movie that took a long time to make. As others have pointed out, the cookie-cutter standard sniveling politician character was written and filmed before the election. I’m 100% sure if McCain had been elected, his name would have been inserted at the same point, in a lame attempt to ground the movie in the present for audiences (along with subtitle location tags like California, USA: Now"). Heck, I’d bet good money that if the movie had come out a few weeks later, there’d be a reference to Michael Jackson’s death in it, but not because Bay felt any particular way about that event.
In other words, any Obama bashing was purely accidental on Bay’s part. That character was, if anything, a jab at politicians in general vs. military.
I haven’t inferred anything. All I’ve done is objectively describe exactly what’s in the movie. I have interpreted anything.
Do you agree or disagree that the movie portrays “President Obama” as being at odds with the military and unwilling to fight the robots?
Did you not read your own OP?
Disagree.
Disagree. US armed forces under President Obama’s command were fighting alongside the Autobots against Decepticon forces around the world. They were even letting the Autobots operate out of an American/British military base on the atoll of Diego Garcia. He ordered the NEST teams (which appear to be under US command, including the UK and Autobot members) to stand down while they figured out how they were going to deal with the Fallen’s assault, which may have been the wrong strategic choice, but not necessarily a cowardly one.
Later on, when the Decepticons begin their all-out operation in Egypt/Jordan/Geographically Akward Middle Eastern Nation, the US military forces go in all-out to help fight them. That was an on-the-spot decision by the military commanders, but the President would have had the authority to nix that if he wanted to, but it went forth with at least his tacit approval.
For what it’s worth, IIRC, we never actually see or hear the President give a direct order, or have one of the military types get off the phone with Obama after getting bad instructions—all the audience’s “contact” with the President comes through the flunkie.
And aside from the fact that the flunkie’s simply an asshole to begin the President would be getting his input on the situation influenced by the him, and we’re getting our view of the President’s actions filtered through how the flunkie chooses to interpret and communicate them.
I mean, if you set the movie in 1962, and the government official was General LeMay—or McNamara, or Lyndon Johnson—you’d probably get a skewed picture of President Kennedy, too.
This is the best you can do? Bashing Hoover and being “PC” (am I the only one who finds being “PC” usually is just being “C”?). Night at the Museum avoiding being offensive is considered right wing bashing? Conservatives sure like playing the victim.
As far as the OP is concerned, seems to me that the scene was filmed well before the election, so who actually won isn’t all the relevant.
I never thought I would read a political debate over Obama that contained the word “Decepticons.” Man, the things I read here…good timez.
I find it weird if a movie uses a real life living person, and puts him in a bad light, in a fictional tale. It seems unnecessarily insulting, and a fictional character could equally well have been used.