The Democratic Party: the Party of Comedy

Humor in politics is really interesting. For most politicians, it is generally a tool in a bag of tricks, an easy fix for something. John McCain can occasionally be funny in a chortle-y kind of way at times, and it serves to make him more...relatable? Or something. 

Of course, like with any piece of comedy, humor in politics can backfire on you. Let's look at a fictional example. The pilot episode of THE WEST WING follows (among other stories) the mini-saga of Josh Lyman almost getting sacked because he got into an argument with the Evangelical activist Mary Marsh during a TV debate. They are fighting about the presence of God in politics, and Mary says, "Well, I can tell you don't believe in any God I pray to, Mr. Lyman. Not any God I pray to." Josh pounces: "Lady, the God you pray to is too busy getting indicted for tax fraud!" Hi-larious! However, it's mean-funny, and that is a dangerous place to be.

The below scene is the final confrontation (and the first introduction of President Bartlet), wherein the agitated Mary Marsh and her cronies unleash their own bigoted brand of mean-funny, to similarly disastrous results. Josh keeps his head, but Toby, as per usual, has the most interesting reaction. He never crosses over into attack humor--he keeps on the defensive, but in such a biting way that it is really effective (i.e. the lug wrench line).

He's wrong about the Third Commandment, of course. The Third Commandment is "you shall not make yourself an idol," and frankly I'm baffled as to why Sorkin let that mistake slip by. Unless it was on purpose...in which case I don't have the energy to unpack everything that could be behind those intentions. Either, this is one of the many examples of why early WW is just so choice: this is the first episode, and we already know a ton about how all the characters process and react to humor in their line of work. 

But on to real life! The DNC this week has given us a couple good examples of well-oiled funny working its way into the speeches. What notable to me is not the presence of humor (that's not new) but the effortlessness with which our dear Dems have been approaching it. Gone is the scrambling of 2000, the nervous collar-tugging of 2004...the party has all the swoosh and confidence of someone who just lost fifteen pounds and bought a nice new pair of pants.  As a Democrat, I gotta say, it's a really wonderful feeling. I hope we use it well.

In another year, with darker clouds hanging over the future, perhaps the following jokes that I pulled out of keynote speeches wouldn't be so funny. But I'm just so optimistic about everything now, I'm giving everyone the benefit of the doubt!

• After her (college-basketball-coach) brother Craig introduced her, Michelle Obama opened her speech on Monday the 25th with, "As you might imagine, for Barack, running for president is nothing compared to that first game of basketball with my brother Craig." Bad. Ass. Whachyou got, Cindy McCain?! Half-siblings that are voting for Obama,* that's what.
• My girl Hillary had a nice, femme-friendly crack about her "sisterhood of the traveling pantsuit" in her speech on Tuesday the 26th. Not my bag, personally (I don't own a pantsuit** and I've never read that book), but it makes me happy to see a woman bonding with other women in a venue like that. 
• Bill, that silver fox, also got a jab or two in during his keynote. Right off the bat, he dispelled any bad blood left over from the primary in one fell, punny swoop: "The campaign generated so much heat, it increased global warming!" He got a big laugh for that one.
• In that vein, Mr. Al Gore had one of my favorite jokes of the week in his speech yesterday at Mile High Stadium. It's worth your fifteen minutes to watch his impassioned tirade (Daniel Dae Kim shows up at about 7:05!), even if just to be wistful about what could have happened...sigh. His joke: "John McCain, a man who has earned our respect on many levels, is now openly endorsing the policies of the Bush/Cheney White House and promising to actually continue them. The same policies? Those policies? All over again? Hey, I believe in recycling, but that's ridiculous." A rare case where "it's funny because it's true" applies. Of everyone in the whole world, you KNOW that Al effing Gore believes in recycling.

Obama and Biden mostly shied away from the direct humor to focus on portraying themselves as credulous and sincere as possible, which I quite understand. I really look forward to the debates, though; Barack is pretty damn fast on his feet with witty comebacks. And Sarah Palin, you'd better be able to bring it! Or at least pay Tina Fey to sit in for you.

Any other keynote jokes I missed? Thoughts on humor in politics? Bring it up in the comments!

* Ugh. Sorry. I promise that is the first and last time I ever link to Us Magazine.

** On the day I was elected as a county delegate for Hillary at my caucus, I was wearing my totally awesome Batman t-shirt.

World's Oldest Jokes

Welcome to an international edition of Spit Takes! We're coming to you live from England, where today the BBC news site has a special report about the world's oldest jokes. Below are the examples from the article:

"Something which has never occurred since time immemorial; a young woman did not fart in her husband's lap." (Sumerian, 1900 BCE)

"What hangs at a man's thigh and wants to poke the hole that it's often poked before? A key." (British, 10th century)

"How do you entertain a bored pharaoh? Sail a boatload of young women dressed only in fishing nets down the Nile -- and urge the pharaoh to go fishing." (Egyptian, 1600 BCE)

And the last, the Roman one from the 1st century BCE. Emperor Augustus is touring his realm and comes across a man who bears a striking resemblance to himself.

Intrigued, he asks the man: "Was your mother at one time in service at the palace?"

The man replies: "No, your highness, but my father was."

The Roman one has a more complex structure with a specific dialogue-based punchline, which is of course a stronger way to build a joke than, say, the Egyptian one, which mostly just sounds like a true statement. Though it is good to know that the blonde jokes I've been hearing all my life have a long pedigree. "How do you get a ______ to _______?" is a pretty strong standby for any generalization joke, I suppose.

The Sumerian is pretty great too; how heartening to know that the idea of women having any kind of non-sexy bodily function is a source of humor that has been mined for so long. And the British one? I'm reminded of one of my first posts about what Mark Twain had to say about how to tell a story. His theory was that a British joketeller structures a comic story without "slur[ring] the nub; he shouts it at you—every time. And when he prints it...he italicizes it, puts some whooping exclamation-points after it, and sometimes explains it in a parenthesis. All of which is very depressing, and makes one want to renounce joking and lead a better life." We definitely get a bit of that in the key joke though the BBC copyeditors kept it formatted normally; clearly you'd have to punctuate the end with emphasis or the joke wouldn't work at all.