This morning’s New York Times has a story about national politicians making fun of themselves on national television. In particular, the story mentioned President Bush’s appearance on “Deal or No Deal” last night, and the fact that last week alone Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards all appeared on the same episode of “The Colbert Report.”
Trouble is, when so many national politicians try to gull the voters into thinking that they are just plain folks by doing comedy shticks on TV, it gives the game away. The ploy becomes obvious.
There’s a lot that could be said about politicians trying to broaden their appeal by deliberately being funny. But the best and the shortest comment was made long ago, by one of the greatest comic geniuses who ever lived: Charlie Chaplin.
Chaplin said this: “I remain just one thing … a clown, and that places me on a higher plane than any politician.”
Send in the clowns.
Comments (1)
Very good point. It does seem like it will be refreshing to see a lighter side of the candidates, because when I think of what they are doing right now, I cannot imagine the stress. I look forward to these sort of appearances, but then when I actually watch them, it looks like the candidates are more stressed out by trying to be funny than anything else. I end up cringing at it, like when Hillary or Obama went on SNL. They're trying to cram a serious message about their candidacy into a silly little comedy sketch, and it never seems to work. I didn't even bother to watch Obama on the Daily Show this week.
Posted by 2chey | April 23, 2008 10:18 AM
Posted on April 23, 2008 10:18