Silly Season

It's become nearly axiomatic that this year the interplay of comedy and politics has been more influential than ever in history. And this includes the anti-Grover Cleveland paternity scandal song "Ma, ma where's my Pa? Gone to the White House ha ha ha". Only frequenters to saloons heard that ditty, though, and every one and his grandma saw all the viral videos of Sarah and Tina and Crazy Minnesota Lady. It's no surprise that this year's most influential TV program was SNL, as its ratings resurgence during the campaign witnessed.

But who'd a thunk that SNL would, in these last weeks of the year, be totally eclipsed by the greatest, grandest onslaught of political humor emerging, almost diabolically, from the flummoxed politicoes themselves? And what image has become more appropriately an iconic summary of Bush's folly in Iraq than his being targeted by a pair of boots? Now it would have been a disaster if Bush had not ducked out of the way, but showing his one real asset--his physical coordination, as he did in his great Yankee Stadium pitch--he managed to keep the incident in the vein of amusement. That he was ignorant of the profound insult implicit in the act rather adds to the merriment, as though he were Margaret Dumont.

Political commentators as well as the late-night regulars have had a rollicking time with the shoe fetish, and it threatens to become more than iconic, even a meme representing general disgust (as in "I hate him but I'm not gonna throw my shoes at him.") That Bush's presidency can be sandwiched between the image of him in front of the "Mission Accompllished" banner and W eluding the footgear says something that historians will certainly laugh at, through their tears.

That indelible image has dimmed our memory of Sarah Palin ghoulishly chattering while a turkey was being slaughtered behind her. For a week around Thanksgiving that was the picture the comics loved, although to be fair, how many of them didn't eat a turkey offed the same way, without even a comrade having been pardoned? But Sarah's profile was not likely to be overshadowed for long, so she trumps out her future son-in-law's mother as an oxycotin fiend.

Sarah's certainly the gift that keeps on giving forever. Now that her conservative supporters have leapt to the compassion side of unwed pregnancy, I wonder if they'll back off a bit on the drug paranoia. Fat chance. But the pundits, especially at the Huffington Post, love that Sarah can now be caught palin' around with a drug trafficker. And there's more in store from her kith and kin, I'm sure.

But they now have competition from from Rod Fucking Blagojevich, whose name it took me two days to master, though it jumped gracefully from Rachel Maddow's lips (well, she called him "F-word"). I finally found a mnemonic device, which was blog-Goya-Vitch. I remembered Goya because I had just a just DVRed a movie called "Goya's Ghost" (and for your sake, don't). Long story short, this Blago guy is a comedy dream, sort of a love child between JFK and Moe of the Three Stooges. And just as insane as that gene combination would have produced. Though in (somewhat ironic) defense of Blago, he did nothing that most other politicians wouldn't do--he just could not filter it out of official conversations. Though he did call the President-elect a Motherfucker. And threaten to extort a children's hospital. And blow up the Sear's Tower if his wife didn't get a manicure. Excuse me, a fucking manicure.

And Eliot Spitzer quit just cause he got a little extra nookie? But speaking of Eliot, comic foil of the Spring, his replacement David Patterson has also reappeared in the comedy club. Specifically, to bring us full circle, in his tasteless parody on SNL, spoofing his legal blindness (and whiny voice). Sure it was tasteless but so spot on that it made Tina Fey's Sarah Palin seem amateurish. Fred Armisen, who only does a passable Obama, was so remarkable that they kept on bringing him on for a running gag as cruel as the W.C. Fields blind man in the china shop.

I felt as though the hilarity of the spoof may be starting to signal the end of the political correctness dicta of modern comedy. We elected a black man so we're off the hook racially for a while. But it's the politicians themselves who keep on raising (or is it lowering) the bar and inviting our contempt. And it's no wonder that Leno got those five prime-time hours.