Comedians find it hard to satirize Obama

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This article was published 04/05/2009 (6345 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

WHEN it comes to taking lumps from comedians, Barack Obama, of course, is still no George W. Bush.
But, as the new administration hits the 100-days-in-office fake milestone, the satirical greeting for the new presi­dent has been more muscular than many expected.
Jon Stewart’s Daily Show has shown that Obma’s press secretary can sound almost exactly like Bush’s press secre­tary, among other displays of the dis­tance between image and reality.
Then there was this, from HBO’s Bill Maher: “How many watched the Obama speech on Tuesday night? If you didn’t see it, I’ll give you the short version. We’re completely broke, and deeply in debt, but we’re going to do a bank res­cue, universal health care, give every­body a college education, have a bigger war in Afghanistan, cut the deficit in half and cure cancer.”
It may not compare to the unyield­ing portrayals, by the end, of Bush as an overmatched dunderhead. But it is something, especially in comparison to the advance concern that nobody would lay a glove on the new president, either because of the comics’ own political sympathy or their fear of offending an audience strongly in Obama’s corner.
“That’s just 24-hour cable news pun­dit blather,” says Spike Feresten, host of the Fox Network’s Talkshow.
“I would guess most comics don’t use Wolf Blitzer, or any other beard in a suit, as their comedy compass.”
Feresten says he’s bored with the Obama-is-black theme. (Jay Leno: “Dur­ing his trip to Ottawa, Canada, President Obama said he was too embarrassed to admit to the Canadians that he’d never actually seen a hockey game. To which the Canadians said, “Oh, don’t worry, we’ve never seen a black guy.”) “People are a lot more complicated than their ethnicity,” says the host of the Saturday late-night show.
“Audiences want something a little smarter these days. I like to hit the Hawaiian thing. I don’t know why that makes me laugh, but it does.… Well, so much for sounding smart.”
It hasn’t hurt comics’ cause that Obama’s cabinet and other appoint­ments were such a contrast to the squeaky-clean image he’s tried to proj­ect.
Said Tonight’s Jay Leno recently, “President Barack Obama told his cabi­net yesterday to ensure that every tax­payer dollar is spent wisely. But there was one embarrassing moment, when he had to explain to the cabinet what a taxpayer was.”
“I’ve seen some comedians go after the current president and get laughs, which I didn’t think would happen for another two years,” says the comic Lenny Clarke. “But if he keeps up at the rate he’s going, they’ll be calling him terrible names in six months.”
Clarke, no liberal, has been doing a version of the following line live: he says, “I did believe him, but he’s a liar. I mean, ‘Change’? All we’re gonna have is spare change by the time he’s done.”
It gets big laughs, Clarke says. And Bill Maher, too, has said that his stand­up audiences are very receptive to ma­terial critical of Obama. By contrast, Maher’s studio audiences, and Jon Stewart’s, can be heard to gasp, or even boo, at such jokes.
A little safer was a recent monologue joke offered by ABC host Jimmy Kim­mel: “President Obama celebrated Earth Day by flying his enormous plane to Iowa to visit a wind-power plant.”
As far as impressions go, we continue to await anything definitive. On Sat­urday Night Live, guest host Dwayne (The Rock) Johnson actually had a bet­ter version — “The Rock Obama,” mak­ing fun of Obama’s fight to control his temper — than cast member Fred Ar­misen’s drab take on the president.
Steve Bridges, known for imperson­ating George W. Bush, recently told the comic Larry Miller that “he’s looking for the inflection” to nail an Obama im­personation, Miller says.
“He said, ‘Sooner or later, someone’s going to find that hook in there, and ev­eryone’s going to wind up following the lead.”’
— Chicago Tribune