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Audacity of Truth
"Change" You Can Believe In:
"Nixon didn’t try to do that. They couldn't control (the media). They didn’t try. [...] What the hell do they think we are, puppets?"
- Liberal opinion writer Helen Thomas, describing the Obama admin's penchant for heavily scripting public appearances & press conferences - 7/1/09
Late night white TV talk show hosts finding it difficult to joke about Obama
The NYT published a story today that should be considered a must-read. The focus of it is the fact that white late night TV talk show hosts are finding it difficult to joke about Barack Obama, and even though they won’t admit it outright, reading between the lines you can see that it’s primarily due to the fact that he’s black, and they don’t want to be painted with the “you’re a racist” brush.  The article points out that the audiences that attend the shows tend to be consist primarily of white Barack Obama supporters who the comedians don’t want to offend.
WTH? Comedians not wanting to offend a group of people?
There are so many things wrong with this story it isn’t even, well, funny. First, the fact that comedians are reluctant to joke about Barry Oh! because they’re worried they’ll be viewed as racists smacks of the same type of worry many critics of Obama have, namely that by opening your mouth and saying something even remotely unflattering about this year’s Democrat American Idol winner that you’ll be lumped in with the fringes on both the left and right whose criticism of Obama is based solely on the fact that he’s black.  How will this fear from both comedians and the general electorate carry over beyond the presidential election should Obama win?
The second thing about this story that should generate a serious eyeroll is the fact that these late night talk show hosts are worried about offending people. Um, when did this ever stop them from making tasteless jokes about the President and others in his administration? Last I checked, it never did/has.
Finally, there’s the myth generated by the article that suggests that the late night hosts just don’t have any good material to use on Obama. Nonsense, writes Weekly Standard blogger Jaime Sneider:
The notion that Obama hasn’t provided sufficient fodder — have they forgotten the campaign seal, his love of Honest Tea, his passed out Body Man — for comedy writers is laughable. More laughable than their programming, in fact. If they need some help, they should call up Rob Long at National Review. But to say there is no joke in Obama talking about the price of arugula at Whole Foods in a speech in Iowa — a state that doesn’t even have a single Whole Foods — is a ridiculous lie.
Indeed. Not to mention the 57 states gaffe, his penchant for flip-flopping (hey, what comedian couldn’t make a few good jokes out of that?), his visit to Mt. Rushmore (an ego joke or two wouldn’t be impossible to write), his 37 bowling score, his statement that his time spent overseas as a child qualifies as “foreign relations” experience? And so much more.
The bottom line, in my opinion, is that in addition to the fact that he’s black, and the fact that comedians are worried they’ll be branded as racists, Leno and co. probably aren’t big on making jokes about The Chosen One primarily because it’s a strong possibility that in addition to their respective audiences, they, too, support BO (something Karl from PW caught from the article as well).  I don’t think we’ll have to wait for the first time we hear of one of them hosting and/or attending a SF-esque Obama soiree to know for sure, either.
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Is it a bad thing? Sure. We can’t talk about race, we can’t poke fun at our differences without causing anger and discontent, and that helps no one. I’m sure many of us disagree on WHY we can’t talk about race (in general), but it’s still a very sticky subject.
The fact that the race issue is also now charged with the rhetoric of presidential propaganda complicates it even further.
Let’s give some credit then to Jon Stewart, who wasn’t afraid to mock the Prophet of Post-Racial Politics over his new Presidential Seal.
I find it exceptionally easy to take shots at the Obamination. Of course, unlike the late-night talkers, I’m not going to vote for him, but the fact that I may well vote for McCain isn’t stopping the volume of fire I direct at him.
I’m not in the late night talk show stand-up comic business, but I think it would be funny and instructive to make jokes about Obama’s white Kansan background and see who complains.
The interesting thing is that none of the “missed canon fodder” cited above is due to Obama’s race. It leaves you with the impression that is simply due to the fact that they favor Obama.
I agree Frank it is the left that judges a person by the color of their skin, the right likes to look at the content of ones character. After all BO is as much white as he is black, it is just his skin color that makes him a black man. – Lorica
He’s a GOD in human flesh! How could anybody jest regarding Him?![:-\](http://sistertoldjah.com/smilies/yahoo_question.gif ":-\")
”
I think it’s a combination of his race and the worshipfulness of these so-called comedians. They love him, so they cannot think of mocking him in any way. Throw in his half-Kenyan blood and you have an Untouchable (oun intended!).
The Stewart vid wouldn’t play. But I heard another on the radio from Stewart regarding the New Yorker cover. He said something along the lines of providing a better response for Barry. It had to do with complaining about a cartoon that dressed him and the wife as Middle Eastern terrorists would make him just like a Middle Eastern terrorist complaining about a cartoon. It actually would have helped Barry quite a bit. Far better than playing the victim again.
I was thinking about this the other day. I was wondering if most late night shows were afraid of insulting Barack and losing younger viewers (who generally support Obama) and are worth more to advertisers. This would also explain why Jon Stewart’s network doesn’t mind: he practically has a dead lock on younger viewers already.
That and he has a contract which is pretty much bulletproof. He can say or do anything he wants, as demonstrated on crossfire in 2004.