July 17, 2008
You know that New Yorker issue? You know, the [one with the cover that was so offensive][1] it will single handedly obliterate civil rights and bring Jesse Helms back from the dead because it gives him such a zombie boner? Well, there was also an article to go along with it.If you so choose, [click yonder.][2]Now here's a [New York Times piece that covers virtually the same territory.][3]The Times piece seems to come away with a far less cynical view. Instead of the Obama-as-crass-opportunist portrayal we see in the New Yorker piece, we're treated to the Obama-as-ultimate-pragmatist angle. Just goes to show you what a difference a reporter's slant can make (and the difference a single pissy source can make).Funny isn't it? Not as funny as McCain's primate rape jokes, granted, but still chuckle worthy. [1]: http://www.latimes.com/media/photo/2008-07/41005748.jpg [2]: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/21/080721fa_fact_lizza [3]: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/11/us/politics/11chicago.html?pagewanted=all
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El_Borak (Bill Hoyt) says...
Or it's just quite possible that he's both. Opportunist and pragmatist are in no way opposites. I think most learn both skills in Politics 101, and no one gets very far in elective office without showing a little mastery of each.But there's very little funny about Obama; in fact, one of the disadvantages of having him as frontrunner is that there has been constructed around him a wall of such gravity that it's nearly impossible to make fun of the guy - or, as in the case of the New Yorker, use the guy to make fun of others - without worrying about having both the campaigns marching out to tut-tut you. He is personally simply out of bounds.I don't think what the Times quoted Jon Stewart as saying is at all the case:When Mr. Stewart on "The Daily Show" recently tried to joke about Mr. Obama changing his position on campaign financing, for instance, he met with such obvious resistance from the audience, he said, "You know, you're allowed to laugh at him." Mr. Stewart said in a telephone interview on Monday, "People have a tendency to react as far as their ideology allows them."http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/15/us/politics/15humor.htmlThe humor problem is not ideology, I don't think. The case of Kerry and Gore shows that. It's not even that he seems serious all the time, as it's not hard to make light of those who take themselves too seriously. The NYT concludes that white late-night hosts and their white audiences are self-conscious about issues of race, meaning that white hosts won't mock the black guy because they don't want to be seen as racists, leaving that field to black comics*.In some ways it is, as Jimmy Kimble said, a "weird reverse racism," though perhaps not in the way he meant. Rather I think they don't want to look like bullies - they think Obama's so brittle that if they made fun of his poor grasp of family history or his creative state counts it would be the equivalent of making fun of kids in the special olympics. Perhaps that fact that we can't bring ourselves to make fun of Obama is an indication that we do not take him seriously, which is a shame. Hopefully that will change by the time his second term rolls around.* and Mencia, who were he white would have been deported to Iceland the minute he said, after showing Obama releasing a dove, that he would never have loosed it if it were a chicken.
July 17, 2008 at 7:30 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )