The thin-skinned Obama
Right-minded comedian Dennis Miller has Barack Obama pegged: “I don’t ever notice the color of [Obama's] skin,” Miller said in an appearance with Bill O’Reilly on Fox News, “But I do notice the thinness of it.”
Throughout the 2008 campaign, Barack Obama has taken exceptional offense to, well, just about everything. While partisans on the left were criticizing Cindy McCain for being slow to disclose tax records, Barack Obama was declaring his own wife, Michelle, off-limits to campaign scrutiny. While John McCain was being mercilessly hounded about his age, Obama complained that conservatives were using “fear tactics” by painting him as inexperienced, funny-named, and black.
But you thought this was going to be about a certain satirical cover on a certain New York magazine. Of course it is. What else has the blogosphere chatting about these days?
The now-infamous New Yorker magazine cover was actually twisting the knife in the gut of conservatives; poking fun at the outrageous claims made by some of them. The cover depicted Obama in traditional Muslim garb, fist-bumping an AK-47-toting Michelle as an American flag burned in a fireplace in the Oval Office, the decor of which was completed by a wall-hanging bearing a likeness of Osama bin Laden.
I am a conservative. My response was, “Touche.” An all-too-accurate satirical depiction by the magazine that defined the art of satire. It wasn’t long ago, after all, that the magazine played on leftist claims by portraying George W. Bush as a Roman emperor. But the Obama campaign didn’t get the satire, calling it “tasteless” and “offensive.”
Tacky? Definitely. Over-the-top? Perhaps. But we’re less than 4 months removed from a presidential election. Political cartoonists will do what political cartoonists do, and as conservative columnist Michelle Malkin puts it, “Guess what? In Washington, political cartoonists and caricaturists spare no one.” And Doug Ross assembled a collage of satirical portrayals of Bush: Bush as the Devil, Bush as a gun-toting madman, and et cetera.
But while the Obama campaign was taking exception to the New Yorker’s cover, the obvious was being pointed out in pundit-land: Why is Obama off-limits to political humor? From Letterman to Leno, late night hosts have graciously spared Obama. Ann Althouse writes, “Why can’t we joke about Obama?” Good question. Althouse cites an article in today’s New York Times quoting several late night writers who excuse the lack of Obama subject matter. One writer went so far as to say, “He’s not a comical figure.”
I’m not a comic, but I think I could carve out a meager living by finding something about Obama to poke fun at. If nothing else, there are his big ears . . . and stand-up comics have cashed in with jokes about human anatomy since the dawn of show biz.
Althouse points out the obvious, which pundits have thus far been painfully slow to point out: Obama gets a free pass because he’s black, and because comedians don’t want to be seen as being racist. It’s a legitimate concern. With the doctrine of political correctness already working against them, the powerful lobbying punch of the Jacksons and the Sharptons, et al, further tilts the table away from their favor. A joke not intended to be racist could be perceived as racist. And racists comments can be career-busters. Just ask Don Imus, John Rocker, and a host of others. Sure, their comments were blatant. But, sometimes, the only thing separating a comment from borderline and blatant is intense media scrutiny. And, whether a conscious effort or not, the Obama campaign has likely helped make funny-pundits more skittish by harshly criticizing anything it perceives as negative.
There’s a fine line between fair play, crude, and downright unacceptable in the world of satire, and it’s a line that should not be crossed, obviously. But one can’t help but wonder: Given the response thus far, what would the mood in the Obama camp be if he were subjected to the same satirical onslaught as, say, George W. Bush?