Omaha metas The Daily Show

[elfs]

Omaha showed me an interesting compare and contrast on Jon Stewart's The Daily Show this morning. First, she showed me the January 13th episode in which Stewart mocked Bush's farewell address, chastising Bush for saying that most of his failures were about political stagecraft: he wouldn't have done the "Mission Accomplished" banner, or he could have handled his Katrina-period press conferences better. He also mocked Bush's use of the word "disappointment," as if Bush were "disappointed" in the failures of others, but he himself did well. Stewart echoed my own observation that there may not be enough of a man "there" in George W. Bush to recognize just how deep the failure of his administration may have been.

Then she showed me the episode the day before. On January 12th, Stewart tried to mock Obama's press conference of the day before, and his only hook for doing so was to mock the competency of it by comparing it to a Bush press conference. He interspersed clips of Obama calling on reporters by full name and association, as if they were members of a respected institution, with Bush's use of dismissive nicknames and contemptuous, clumsy bon mots at his own press conferences.

Once we don't have Bush to kick around anymore, it's gonna be a tough four years for comedy. I'd say we could mock the ridiculous Impeach Obama crowd, but making fun of the mentally handicapped is so inappropriate these days.

Comments

[rhonan.livejournal.com]

I have great faith that the Republicans in Congress, and right-wing talk radio, will give Stewart and other comics enough material to work with. They just won't have quite as easy a time of it as they have grown used to in the Bush years.

[tagryn]

Kind of hard to mock people who have no power. Why bother? The next two years (at least) are exclusively a Democratic show. Stewart and Colbert are talented comedians, they'll find an angle to use, they just haven't quite figured it out yet. Commenters like Olbermann and Matthews who threw in hard with the Obama camp during the campaign have less room to maneuver, and will have a harder time of it.

I think the comedians are also trying to figure out exactly how far they can mock Obama before the racism charge gets thrown at them. Pelosi and Reid are easier targets, but the average American doesn't know who they are.

[hydrolagus.livejournal.com]

Hopefully he'll get up to speed with a bit of practice. Every king needs a fool to point out his failings and weak spots (terms I use in the Shakespearean sense, not as a governmental recommendation).

[mikstera.livejournal.com]

Indeed. Jon Stewart is a modern Jester, and I use that descriptor as the highest of complements. We desperately need him, and we'll need him in the coming days... even if he'll have to work harder to find material than he's had to these last eight terrible years.

[urox.livejournal.com]

Back in the 2004 election, one of the things Stewart said in one of his shows was, "Please. Make my life difficult," as in, give him less material by electing better people to office.

Perhaps the upside of this is that he'll be comedic about world politics and we'll be better educated for it. :D

[doodlesthegreat.livejournal.com]

Patton Oswalt had this to say back in November:

http://www.pattonoswalt.com/index.cfm?page=spew&id=93

In essence, it will only be the shitty comics who won't be able to work with this.