A New York Times article reveals that late night comics are having a hard time making jokes about Sen. Barack Obama. From the article:
What’s so funny about Barack Obama? Apparently not very much, at least not yet.
On Monday, The New Yorker magazine tried dipping its toe into broad satire involving Senator Obama with a cover image depicting the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee and his wife, Michelle, as fist-bumping, flag-burning, bin Laden-loving terrorists in the Oval Office. The response from both Democrats and Republicans was explosive.
Comedy has been no easier for the phalanx of late-night television hosts who depend on skewering political leaders for a healthy quotient of their nightly monologues. Jay Leno, David Letterman, Conan O’Brien and others have delivered a nightly stream of joke about the Republican running for president — each one a variant on the same theme: John McCain is old.
Mr. Carter explains why so little jokes about Obama:
Why? The reason cited by most of those involved in the shows is that a fundamental factor is so far missing in Mr. Obama: There is no comedic “take” on him, nothing easy to turn to for an easy laugh, like allegations of Bill Clinton’s womanizing, or President Bush’s goofy bumbling or Al Gore’s robotic persona.
I'll help these poor comedy writers come up with stuff. How about his perceived arrogance? Jon Stewart joked about the presumptuous presidential seal but he had to tell the audience "You know, you’re allowed to laugh at him." But how about his Web site already selling leather-bound videos of speeches he made just a few months ago! Surely, there are a few jokes they can come out of that.
Or how about his gaffe about having visited 57 states? If John McCain would have made this gaffe it would been all over the entertainment media as proof that he's "losing his bearings," as Obama likes to put it.
Then there's also Obama's hyperbole about "healing" and "the ocean risings." I'm sure soaring rhetoric is good enough to eek out one good laugh out of. I mean the great and snarky comedienne Hillary Clinton did.
I have a joke that some comedy writers can steal and the progressive bloggers
will love:
President Bush is extremely unpopular these days. However, one of the
presidential candidates has been aligning himself with the president's policies
and this might be a bad political move for him. Oh, I'm not talking about
John McCain. I'm talking about Sen. Obama's 'move to the center.'
I'm really shocked that the late night comics are having trouble coming up with jokes about Sen. Obama but have no difficulty saying that Sen. McCain seems "mentally challenged." This is all so surprising.
