Gary Jacobs is a former television comedy writer and producer who occasionally writes supposedly humorous and satirical columns for the Los Angeles Times.
Previous offerings from Jacobs, whose work is not labeled as humor, include what anyone would recognize as obvious sendups, such as "A sneak peek of President Trump's first State of the Union address," and "What a GOP presidential debate with a candidate-approved format might be like." But on Monday morning, the Times posted and published an item by Jacobs about how Saturday's GOP debate "frightened" his 6 year-old daughter. Readers unaware of his previous work, and perhaps even some who are, likely believed he was being serious until several paragraphs in.
Those only seeing the column's headline elsewhere at the paper's web site or at other sites online would surely have thought that Jacobs was serious. No, he wasn't. In this instance, he ultimately came off as an extraordinarily intolerant person who used his child as a prop, invented a statement from a well-known person, likely without their permission, and completely fabricated the existence of a book, its "child psychologist" author, and her statements.
Behold what passes for (unlabeled) humor at the Number 5 web-ranked newspaper in North America (HT to longtime commenter Gary Hall):
What to do if your kid was frightened by the GOP debate
We try so hard to protect our children from danger, but that's not always possible. This sad truth hit home Saturday night when my 6-year-old daughter came running down the stairs in her Peanuts pajamas, sobbing hysterically and shivering with terror. “Daddy, Daddy, I'm frightened!” she cried, throwing herself into my arms. Somehow she'd seen the Republican debate.
... “Those men, those mean mean men.”
“Sweetie,” I said gently, “I think you're talking about Gov. Chris Christie, Sen. Marco Rubio, Sen. Ted Cruz and Donald Trump. And yes, sometimes they can be very mean.”
“But why, Daddy, why?”
“Sweetheart, have you ever heard of something called ‘the Republican base'?” She hadn't. “Well, they're very, very angry and some of the candidates are trying to exploit that anger.”
So finally, six paragraphs in, we get our first tangible clues that this is all made up (and supposedly funny), because no father with a brain would try to explain "the Republican base" or use words like "exploit" with a six year-old, even one who might know what "frightened" means.
But then again, we're not yet completely sold on the idea that Jacobs has a brain (see how "humorous" personal insults can be, Gary?).
Continuing:
... I put my little girl back to bed, feeling I'd let her down. Then, in an amazing stroke of luck, I turned on the TV to find Charlie Rose interviewing Dr. Patricia Muldowney, child psychologist and author of “How to Talk to Your Children After a Republican Debate.” It turns out my daughter's experience was all too common.
“It's the same story after every debate,” she told Rose. “My office gets inundated with calls from concerned parents. Their children can't sleep, some have nightmares, many imagine they're being chased by monsters with funny hair. The symptoms usually disappear after a couple of days, though there have been a few cases of children who simply can't get the image of a smirking Ted Cruz out of their heads. It's a sort of PTSD. We saw children similarly traumatized after the Bill Cosby revelations.”
“Because they'd thought of Cosby as this beloved father figure,” Rose said.
“That, too,” Dr. Muldowney replied. “But I was mostly referring to the constant television appearances by Gloria Allred.”
Patricia Muldowney and her book do not exist. Charlie Rose certainly didn't have the conversation described. Jacobs is just using a made-up statements by a real person and a completely made-up person to taunt Republican Party candidates who may conceivably have, but likely didn't, scare his daughter into running to him so he could have a made-up conversation with her.
Things deteriorated from there, including the following wrap, apparently to ensure that no GOP candidate was left out of the insult delivery machine: "It could have been so much worse. Carly Fiorina could have made the debate."
I am told that Jacobs' work made the print edition of the Times in this instance. Geez, I hope the paper isn't paying him for this tasteless dreck.
(Note: The photo used in this post is NOT of Gary Jacobs's daughter. It is a "free to share and use" image obtained in a Bing.com search.)
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
