The Politico reported last week that Barack Obama, on the stump,
worried that “GOP attackers” were trying to make voters “lose focus
on the issues….and try[ing] to make me out to be a risky, scary
guy.”
To show how unscary and unrisky, he is, Obama quipped, “Now I
must say: I don’t find myself particularly scary or particularly
risky.”
This joke should immediately make all Americans of good humor
wonder: Are you actually comfortable with giving him access to the
largest centralized nuclear stockpile in the world?
Obama is not a threat to the Republic because of his radical
politics. Rather, his humor is the more clear and present danger.
He’s as funny as a laser guided toothache
The problem isn’t that Obama attempts jokes now and again that
don’t come off. The problem is that his humor is completely chilly.
His repertoire is an awkward collection of self-conscious half
jokes. And whenever he thinks on his feet to come up with a quick
retort, the results are decidedly sub-sub-par.
At a campaign event last month, the late Bernie Mac was telling
jokes borrowed from insult comic Andrew Dice Clay, and thus, not
well-suited for a political event. According to the Chicago
Tribune, Obama appeared unsure what to do with this.
Obama thanked “my great friend, one of the kings of comedy,
Bernie Mac,” but then later told the audience that Mac should
“clean up” his routine because “this is a family affair.”
Or not. “I’m just messing with you man,” Obama said.
Afterward, the campaign actually put out a statement to put some distance between Obama and
the inappropriateness of Mac’s jokes. Spokebabe Jen Psaki said that
Obama had clearly “told Bernie Mac that he doesn’t condone these
statements and believes what was said was inappropriate.”
A Sister Soulja moment this wasn’t, no matter how Obama’s
handlers try to spin it. Rather, anyone paying attention learned
the inconvenient truth about Obama: He doesn’t get jokes.
GENERALLY SPEAKING, there are two themes for Obama “jokes”: “I’m
Great,” and “I’m Only Pretty Great.”
In June, Obama spoke to a crowd of excited Chicagoans
celebrating the city’s successful bid for the 2016 Olympics. He
said that the city “is going to win the 2016 Olympics and
Paralympics. And your Senator — he’s winning too!”
Any decent, God fearing bad joke teller would have stopped
there, but not our Barack. He continued, “I’m just going to be able
to walk over there. I might have to rent out my house, I don’t know
how much its going to be worth. And I also, in the interest of full
disclosure, I have to let you know that in 2016 I’ll be wrapping up
my second term as president.”
That was an “I’m Great” joke. For an “I’m Only Pretty Great”
joke, here’s Obama
fawning over dancetastic former running back Emmitt
Smith:
“Emmitt, what can’t you do?” Obama asked as he turned
towards the charismatic star. “You haven’t found anything yet.
Unbelievable.”
“I’m just glad he’s not running for president,” Obama joked.
That’s supposed to be funny, see, because Emmitt Smith
isn’t running for president. So Obama can breathe a fake
sigh of relief.
Ronald Reagan’s great moment of humor came at a time when he was
on the brink of death by gunshot wound. As he was being wheeled
into the hospital, he said to his doctors, “I hope you’re all
Republicans.” Obama himself
mentioned in an editorial meeting with the Reno-Gazette
Journal that he aspires to achieve Reagan levels of adoration,
but he can’t even crack a joke better than Bill Clinton, a person
who never enjoyed the true believer fanbase Obama has had.
(Parents, thank your lucky stars.)
When speaking about why he chose Al Gore to tackle federal
regulatory reform, President Clinton responded, “I asked him to do
it because he was the only person that I could trust to read all
150,000 pages in the Code of Federal Regulations.”
This conveyed to others that Clinton was like you, that
is, just as bored by the intricacies as you might be. Reagan also
thrived when it came to packaging policy into something fit for
public consumption.
By contrast, Obama errs on the side of placing himself along
other icons, even if in an almost-self deprecating fashion, such as
in this much-referenced line: “I am so overexposed, I make Paris
Hilton look like a recluse.”
When McCain’s campaign noticed that similarity themselves, they
ran an ad ripping on Obama’s celebrity. But within days, it was
Paris Hilton, not Obama, who managed to win the funny contest with
a few solid shots about McCain’s age.
Let us be clear. When your sense of humor is eclipsed by the
intentional humor of Paris Hilton, you need to hire a better
joke-writer. (In fact, John Cleese offered to write for the
campaign but was rebuffed.)
Obama’s 26-year-old chief speechwriter Jon Favreau shared a
personal anecdote with the New York
Times on the theme of what Obama finds funny:
It turns out that when the Chicago White Sox “swept Mr.
Favreau’s beloved Red Sox three games to none in their American
League 2005 division series,” Obama was in a gloating mood. So he
“walked over to his speechwriter’s desk with a little broom and
started sweeping it off.”
ACTUALLY, THERE IS a third theme: cliche race jokes. Indeed, the
man who is supposed to be above that sort of thing not only goes
there, he goes there with some frequency.
At a South Carolina Democratic debate, Obama declined to state
whether Bill Clinton had qualified as, in Toni Morrison’s words,
“the first black president” because “I would have to investigate
more Bill’s dancing abilities, you know, some of this other stuff
before I accurately judged whether he was in fact a ‘brother.’”
Or at an event in Atlanta he told a young, mostly black crowd
“You can’t find a job unless you are a really, really good
basketball player. Which most of you brothers are not. I know you
think you are. But you’re not.
“You are overrated in your own mind. You will not play in the
NBA. You are probably not that good a rapper. Maybe you are the
next Little Wayne, but probably not. In which case you need to stay
in school.”
Most of his attempts at humor are mixed with “I’m Great” jokes.
The Emmitt Smith joke came with a reference to Obama’s popular talk
show appearance in which he shimmied with Ellen DeGeneres. (The
public swooned at his stiff dancing, because at least it wasn’t
as stiff as Al Gore or John Kerry.) The go-to-school joke
only works because you wouldn’t expect the Senator Barack
Obama to name check “Lil Wayne.”
Slate’s Chris Beam observed that Obama actually “laughs at his own
jokes, a staccato ‘heh’ that sounds naked when spoken into a mic in
a large auditorium.” He’s laughing at us.
J. Peter Freire is managing editor of The
American Spectator and a 2008 Phillips Fellow.
