Saw Stewart's show for the first time in a couple of weeks (no way I can stay up 'til midnight with a five a.m. wakeup). His standup veteran's advice for heckled pols was good.
I only wish he'd extended his largesse of wisdom to, um, us.
The double standard of political mockery is glaring here at the old orange watering hole. Dueling rec list diaries sputtering outrage at Romney's bus honking 'round an Obama rally and cackling with glee at an Obama supporter following the Romney caravan in a car with a stuffed dog on the roof.
Make up your minds, people. Either geese and ganders are equally sauced in derision and drollery--up to and including Segrettian ratfucking--or we strive for a political season equivalent to four months of minuets and quadrilles.
I beg you: choose the former.
Oh, sure, we could sign a treaty banning comical weapons. And such a document would be quite useful for jotting down grocery lists or lining bird cages. Whatever adherence it gained would be one-sided and short-lived and, even if both camps complied, it would be a distinct disadvantage to us. Because we're funnier and smarter.
'Pubs, by nature, are rather humorless, and when they attempt levity for partisan purposes, their efforts inevitably bend to puerile pettiness. The word dickish comes to mind.
Don't get me wrong. 'Pubs can be hilarious, whether it's Bobby Jindal doing his impression of Fred Rogers' first acid trip or Allen West doing the Heinz ketchup routine from Manchurian Candidate. But their purposeful attempts at standup are notoriously flat, because they just don't have the It, the Thing. No borscht in the blood or something.
They indulge in frat house yucks. Plots to pants passers-by and incessant neener-neenering. They just can't curb that inherent dickishness (Hello, Exhibit One, aka Andrew Breitbart, god roast your soul).
We, in contrast, have a little appreciation of subtlety in Thalia's art. Oh, we can be dicks, too, make no mistake, but we're more often actually funny dicks. Better get off this line. It promises nothing good.
More importantly, our opponents offer such choicer material. Nothing, admittedly, to match the treasure that was Sarah Palin, the comedic Harmonic Convergence of a marriage between the Salami and Banana families solemnized in Poughkeepsie.
No such luck this year. We'll face Milktoast Mitt and Milktoast Tim or Milktoast John or whatever Milktoast goes with Milktoast. But fight we must, because the ex-Bushies gathering 'round the Milktoast are the same evil, murderous men who brought you the death of hundreds of thousands in Iraq. And they've just discovered the letter "N."
(What, can't find comedy in evil, genocidal maniacs? You've never seen a Mel Brooks move?)
So, come on, my legions of laughter. There's comedy gold in those hills. Go jest, young man!
We're running against a guy who ties dogs to cars and builds houses for horses. A fellow with more oil in his hair than he could ever drill in ANWAR. A guy who doesn't know the word "doughnut," one of the most inherently funny words in the English language.
His very blandness and whiteness begs mocking. He drives his bus after the black guy, honking? Of course, he's a total honky!
My dear brothers and sisters, do not fear your power. Take up the jester's scepter. Use the Farce, Luke.
Otherwise, I fear we shall be literally be bored to death.