Video of the Day: Obama's Amateur Night at the Apollo

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The president shows off his vocal prowess with a risky rendition of Al Green -- with the soul legend listening.

It takes a fair amount of crazy and a fair amount of courage to run for president, and Barack Obama demonstrated he's got both Thursday night. While the Republican contenders to succeed him fought it out in South Carolina, the president was in New York for a fundraiser at the Apollo Theater. On stage, he took the aggressive move of reaching into a falsetto range to sing a few bars of Al Green's "Let's Stay Together" (as in, him and the electorate). Warbling a classic like that is a risky move in any setting -- but he did it with the reverend himself in the audience, making it perhaps the most audacious decision of his presidency. One might be inclined to tell Obama to keep his day job, but that is, of course, the reason he was at a fundraiser in the first place.

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David A. Graham

David Graham is an associate editor at The Atlantic, where he oversees the Politics Channel. He previously reported for Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal, and The National.

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