As last Saturday’s White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner again reminded us, there’s always a place–because there’s always a need–for comic therapy. Too much is always going wrong in the world, and the crucible chroniclers and enablers need the diversion. As do consumers.
The annual event–now an overly long, overly celebrity-laden, C-SPAN staple–calls for a professional comedian. Some are safely lame, as was the case last year with Jay Leno. Even worked in an Obama mother-in-law joke. Some are a bit too personally edgy; think Wanda Sykes. And some are flat-out disrespectful; recall Stephen Colbert hammering President George W. Bush. Not that GWB wasn’t hammer-able. Of course he was. But the office of the presidency, if not its occupant, deserved more than an onslaught of wince-able material.
The trick is to be funny and relevant without sounding like an extension of the cheap-shot, uncivil public discourse that all of us are all too familiar with.
So, nice work Seth Meyers, of “Saturday Night Live” fame, and nice work, President Barack Obama, of world’s toughest job fame.
Meyers took potshots without being off-putting or offensive. The practitioners of politics and the media–from Fox News to NPR to SNL’s NBC–were prime targets. To wit:
* Donald Trump: “Mr. Trump runs the Miss USA Beauty Pageant, which is great for Republicans because it’ll streamline their search for a V.P.” * The obvious physical toll the presidency has taken on Barack Obama: “…Has gone from looking like the guy in the Old Spice commercial to Louis Gossett Sr.” * Jon Hamm, who plays a handsome, advertising-exec hunk in “Mad Men”: “Looks like what every Republican thinks they look like.” * Chris Matthews, the high-decibel, interruption-prone host of MSNBC’s “Hardball”: “Sounds like an auctioneer in a wind tunnel.” * Juan Williams, the black journalist known to have controversial misgivings about Muslim airline passengers: “The least likely man to get a cab in New York.”
As for the president, “My fellow Americans” has never been a laugh line before. Nor an appropriate segue into commentary on the depths of America’s polarizing politics.
Before he moved on to the release of his “official birth video,” that looked not unlike “Lion King” outtakes, the president acknowledged the obvious. “No one is prouder to put this birth certificate matter to rest than ‘The Donald,'” he quipped.
Everyone laughed, save a certain petulant harlequin. The target appeared perturbed, if not constipated. Even feigning graciousness must be a character flaw.
Obama later pointed out that Trump manifested nigh on to presidential acumen on a recent “Celebrity Apprentice” episode by “firing” actor Gary Busey instead of singer Meat Loaf. “These are the types of decisions that would keep me up at night,” noted the president. “Well-handled, sir.”
At the end of the night, those on-hold crucibles had resumed and Obama went back to monitoring Osama bin Laden.
Laughs had been provided at the usual suspects’ expense. As for Meyers, he was humorous without embarrassing any but the terminally thin-skinned. As for Obama, he ironically reminded viewers that he appears more comfortable with a witty than a bully pulpit. And as for Trump, he remained a running joke.