A Funny Thing Happened

[darrels joy]

A Funny Thing Happened
On the Way to the White House

By JAMES TARANTO
July 17, 2008

(Note: Because of a brief absence, we won't be filing a column tomorrow or Monday. We plan to return Tuesday.)

Thanks to The New Yorker, the subject of humor has dominated this week in the presidential campaign. Often when people talk about humor, the discussion is decidedly unfunny. An excellent example is an article in Politico.com called "McCain's Humor Often Backfires."

"To McCain's friends and supporters, the humor is a mark of his authenticity," writes Politico's Ben Smith. "To his detractors, some of the jokes are offensive and out of touch with contemporary mores":

What's undeniable, though, is that the humor, with its political risks and, to some, its charm, is intrinsic to John McCain. He is a man of a certain generation, with a machismo forged from his experience as a Navy pilot and an aviator, a candidate who is more comfortable in his own skin than with a teleprompter. . . .

Irreverence in the abstract is one thing. But McCain's specific jokes can be harder for some to stomach.

Example: In 1986 the Tucson Citizen reported that McCain had told the following joke:

"Did you hear the one about the woman who is attacked on the street by a gorilla, beaten senseless, raped repeatedly and left to die? When she finally regains consciousness and tries to speak, her doctor leans over to hear her sigh contently and to feebly ask, 'Where is that marvelous ape?' "

His spokeswoman said at the time he didn't recall telling the joke, something his current spokesman, Brian Rogers, reiterated to Politico.

Which reminds us of a joke. Two U.S. senators are sitting in a bar, and one of them says, "I drink to forget telling jokes."
"That's very sad," says the second senator.
"It could be sadder," the first senator replies.
"What could be sadder than drinking to forget?" asks the second senator.
"Forgetting to drink!"

Anyway, in McCain's defense, maybe you had to be there. At least one of McCain's jokes, however--in addition to being somewhat amusing, in our opinion--has yielded some useful information for foreign-policy makers:

McCain was also recently condemned by the government of Iran for suggesting that increasing U.S. cigarette sales to Iran could be "a way of killing 'em."

"We condemn such jokes and believe them to be inappropriate for a U.S. presidential candidate," said Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini. "It is most evident that jokes about genocide will not be tolerated by Iranians or Americans."

If Hosseini is on the level, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's "joke" about wiping Israel off the map was nothing of the kind--a reason to support the candidate who favors a tougher line against the mad mullahs.

Obama's problem, meanwhile, is the opposite. He appears to be completely humorless. Not only that, but as we noted Tuesday, there has been very little humor about Obama, whose supporters tend to be very sensitive and angry. Now comes Andy Borowitz, with a (satirical) "list of official campaign-approved Barack Obama jokes." Example:

Barack Obama and a kangaroo pull up to a gas station. The gas station attendant takes one look at the kangaroo and says, "You know, we don't get many kangaroos here." Barack Obama replies, "At these prices, I'm not surprised. That's why we need to reduce our dependence on foreign oil."

We came up with a few on our own:

A guy asks Barack Obama, "Who was that lady I saw you with last night?" Obama replies, "I think people should lay off my wife. The notion that you can attack my family--that's not what America is all about. It's too easy to get caught up in these distractions."

Why did the chicken cross the road? To get away from the so-called leaders of the Christian right, who have been all too eager to exploit what divides us.

And then there's the one about the definition of audacity: when a guy throws his grandparents under the bus, then pleads for mercy because his parents are orphans (or would have been had they not predeceased their own parents).

Army Fatigued
The gold standard* of political humor, of course, is a joke told by another former presidential nominee back in 2006:

You know, education--if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq.

This was side-splitting enough at the time, but an Associated Press report shows that it is funny on a whole new level:

Spc. Grover Gebhart has spent nine months at a small post on a Sunni-Shiite fault line in western Baghdad. But the 21-year-old soldier on his first tour in Iraq feels he's missing the real war--in Afghanistan, where his brother is fighting the Taliban.

With violence in Iraq at its lowest level in four years and the war in Afghanistan at a peak, the soldiers serving at patrol station Maverick say Gebhart's view is increasingly common, especially among younger soldiers looking to prove themselves in battle. . . .

That soldiers are looking elsewhere for a battle is a testament to how much Iraq has changed from a year ago, when violence was at its height. Now it's the lowest in four years, thanks to the U.S. troop surge, the turn by former Sunni insurgents against al-Qaida in Iraq, and Iraqi government crackdowns on Shiite militias.

The aforementioned erstwhile candidate came of age in the Vietnam era, when conscription was the law. Because thousands of men were forced into military service who did not want to go into that line of work, somehow the stereotype has persisted that the work of a soldier is undesirable. In fact, the work of war is very attractive to some people, and one of the glories of a free economy is that it is the best possible means for sorting people into jobs they find fulfilling.

If service in Iraq is now less desirable because success has made it boring, the joke is on those who fail to grasp that the dangerous work of defending America is, to some men, also supremely rewarding.

* This is an example of a form of humor known as "sarcasm."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121631432833862477.html?mod=Best+of+the+Web+Toda y

[1CAVCCO15MED]

It's like the New Yorker cover with Obama and his wife in the White House as a muslim and a terrorist. I think the word "lynched" was used by his supporters. Hell, I am a senile old fart but I got it right away. It wasn't making fun of him, it was making fun of his detractors! It seems like every single thing said against him is going to be interpreted as some kind of latent racism. Hell, he's not even black by a lot of their own definitions. Even some that do consider him black, like Jessie Jackson, excuse me, the Reverend Jessie Jackson, resent the hell out of him, want to "cut his nuts off". Why? If he wins he will steal a bunch of their thunder about how a black man can not get an even break. Besides, being president will make him an "oreo", black on the outside and while in the middle. It is a never ending self defeating system to keep race alive, not hope.

[Packo]

BINGO!

It will also but people like Jackson and Sharpton out of work....if you want to call it work.

Pack

[DMZ-LT]

Better hide your nuts if Jessie don't like you

[reconeil]

Anybody know if Imus and that White Comedian (don't remember name) had any
comments on this latest Racial Double Standard BS,...since "They" too DARED
speak disparagingly about Blacks or People of Color, in public?

Granted, neither: "Honky" or "White Devil" sinner said anything bad about saintly &
beyond reproach Mr. & Mrs Obama. Still, I would certainly like knowing "Their"
thoughts on what now merely considered some silly & harmless slips-of-the-tongue?

Such should certainly prove interesting. Wouldn't you think?

Neil