With Him, Not At Him

There seems to have emerged amongst professional satirists, some concern that Obama may be an “untouchable”. Not in the sense that they “must not” or “should not” make jokes about him, but in the sense that they just don’t really have anywhere to go, at least not without sounding snide and petty.

Chris Rock on Making Fun of Barack Obama:

Chris Rock: He’s just one of those guys, you know, like Will Smith. There’s no Will Smith jokes. There’s no Brad Pitt jokes. You know, what are you going to say? “Ooh, you used to have sex with Jennifer Aniston. Now you have sex with Angelina Jolie. You’re such a loser.” What do you say? “Ooh, your movies are big. You make $20 million.” There’s nothing to say about Brad Pitt.

CNN: Why is Obama like that?

Rock: It’s like “Ooh, you’re young and virile and you’ve got a beautiful wife and kids. You’re the first African-American president.” You know, what do you say?

Jon Stewart gave it a go on Tuesday. In signature style the Daily Show spliced together clips from Obama’s inaugural address with similar lines from various speeches W has given over the years. It was a valiant effort at demonstrating The Daily Show to still be fit for purpose, that it can live on without Bush in the White House, but one that ultimately ended up lampooning itself rather than its subject.

Colbert will live on as his target is not “the establishment” as such, but the lunatic right-wing pundits like Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh, who will presumably have even more reason for rabid rants now the right has been reduced to the role of court jester. Speaking of whom….

But Jon Stewart, I suspect, may have to back off – for a while at least. Perhaps the show will revert to its pre-Bush format and be less political, more focused on ridiculing celebrity culture, possibly including the celebrity culture that surrounds the new president. Being pretty much the best thing on tv, I think he’ll ultimately be fine.

He isn’t of course, the only one struggling. This is the best the Onion could come up with: Inauguration Crowd Moves To White House Gates To Watch Presidency Happen which is pretty lame stuff compared to the prophetic piledriver it gave us upon Bush’s inauguration. Private Eye fared little better, its cover portraying Obama in conversation with Hillary Clinton. He is asking her “So can we still blame everything on Bush?”. She responds: “YES WE CAN!”

(Will post the image when I find it online.)