Jewish World Review June 17, 2009 / 25 Sivan 5769
Presidential satire takes Hopium break
By John Kass
Is this American art form, once practiced expertly by late night television comedians, now dead?
All signs point to "yes."
It's not that he did it on purpose. Obama has a fine sense of humor and can take a joke and tell jokes on himself. And he's got a magnetic smile.
But according to one theory, he came home exhausted after a long day in the Oval Office, tired from transcending the politics of our past, and from appointing another couple of dozen czars to run things. So he sat down hard on a pillow on a
There was a terrible crunch. A look of surprise. A tiny muffled scream. Then it was over. It really doesn't matter if it was a mistake or by executive order. The little critter is dead just the same.
Not all political comedy is dead.
Just about every other president you can think of in modern times has been lampooned. It happened to Bush II, Clinton, Bush I, Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon and Johnson.
Kennedy? Not so much.
But then Kennedy, like Obama, was born in Camelot. All the others got a merciless thwacking.
These days, though, it seems that our present-day comics, particularly the TV comics, can't tell a snarky joke about Obama.
It just might be all that Hopium most writers have been smoking. Scientists will no doubt discover that Hopium has a devastating side effect: The human laugh glands shrivel like forgotten grapes that rolled behind the fridge.
I just might let those scientists take a slice of my brain after my Hopium crop comes in, once I scrape it off the Obama Chia Heads on my desk, the Determined Chia Obama head and the Happy Chia Obama head. But that could take some time. Those little buds aren't growing as fast as I planned.
In the meantime, aren't there any comedians who can stay off the Hopium pipe long enough to write a few skits about the Obama White House?
Where's the one about
Or the president sneaking a smoke in his bathrobe out on the
Or an Obama character in a Star Trek uniform, as another black Vulcan with big ears.
But you don't see any of this from Letterman or
"Maybe they just want him to succeed, because these are very serious times, with the economy in chaos, and he must succeed or we're in big trouble," said an Obama supporter who, through the slitted eyes of a Hopium smoker, has nevertheless observed the presidential satire deficit. "Did they make fun of Bush right after 9/11?"
No, they waited a couple weeks.
But as the president keeps telling us, the time of Obama is the most serious time since the Great Depression, so that theory might explain things. You don't make fun of a president as the nation waits to be driven from their homes, to huddle along railroad tracks, building fires in garbage cans, dreaming of a single potato to eat, while a small child plays the harmonica in the cold mud.
Yet there have been other serious times, during war and chaos, and comics still made fun of the guy in the
In Obama comedy land, he's always the cool guy, the most interesting man in the world, but without the Dos Equis and the fake chest hair. In some Obama skits, you wait for the Obama character to turn to the camera and say "Stay thirsty my friends. Look, these are difficult times, yes. But stay thirsty."
In Obama comedy land, other politicians are grasping, desperate madmen.
He's so cool.
One theory about why the TV comedians lay off this
But if Obama is truly the guy who fed the multitudes at his inauguration, with two McFish fillets and five hot dog buns, then he's the one who should have mercy on the TV comics, find that little critter under the pillow, and bring presidential satire back to life.
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John Kass is a columnist for the Chicago Tribune. Comments by clicking here.
© 2008, Chicago Tribune. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.