A priest, a rabbi, and Obama walk into a bar . . .
I meant to comment on this article in the July 15, 2008 edition of the NYT yesterday, but didn’t get around to it. To save you the time of reading it, the article explores the fact that President Bush and Sen. McCain are mocked routinely and mercilessly by comedians, but Sen. Obama is rarely, if ever, mocked. How do you explain this? Comedy writers and late night hosts explain that Obama just isn’t mockable. This is, of course, complete nonsense. The article hints at what the real reasons are: the vast majority of the writers and hosts are leftists infatuated with Obama, who are afraid that they may caricature Obama in a way harmful to his campaign. They fret about what Vice President Gore and Sen. Kerry’s loss, almost feeling a bit guilty that their jokes about the robotic VP and the elitist dilettante from Massachusetts led to their losses. No such qualms about Bush or McCain. Or Quayle. Or Bush I. Or Reagan. To a lesser extent, there is a fear of a backlash as a result of mocking Obama from the young, who consider Obama their secular Messiah and who, for the most part, constitute the audiences these shows attract. These younger generations, of which I am a part, are supposedly detached and enamored with irony. Ironic. I would also add that race may be playing a factor as well, as no one
likes to be labeled a racist. Just ask the editor of the New Yorker. I never thought I’d say this, but Maureen Dowd has a good column on the subject today. Humorist Andy Borowitz writes that “Obama releases list of approved jokes about himself; bid to help late night comics.”
