Opinion: Politics shalt not be <i>fun</i>, dammit!
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It’s official -- the Democratic Party has no sense of humor.
In a 13-3 vote, the executive council of the South Carolina Democratic Party denied comedian Stephen Colbert‘s application to enter the state’s Democratic presidential primary, even though the ‘Colbert Report’ star had fulfilled the minimum requirements of submitting paperwork and ponying up $2,500. ‘He’s really trying to use South Carolina Democrats as suckers so he can further a comedy routine,’ Waring Howe, a member of the executive council, sniffed to the Associated Press. ‘[He] serves to detract from the serious candidates on the ballot.’
Heaven knows we wouldn’t want to distract impressionable voters away from the gravitas of Joe ‘My state was a slave state’ Biden! The SC Demos claimed to be heeding ‘requirements’ that a candidate be ‘viable’ and ‘actively campaigning’ in the state, yet somehow they managed to approve Mike Gravel, who is neither.
But at least you could say the party was defending its own narrow, joyless interests in not letting itself be mocked by the best political satirist in America. No such case can be made for the army of grumpusses on the left, who accurately saw Colbert as a dangerous sprinkle of sugar on the day-old bowl of Wheaties that is American politics. ‘It’s a terrible idea on many different grounds. Comedically, it’s an extreme gag and an unoriginal one at that,’ the Huffington Post’s Rachel Sklar wrote, in a piece whose comedic virtues are purely unintentional. ‘What has been so great about Colbert is how he uses the character to make the larger point, one which often translates into trenchant (and, let’s face it, earnest) political commentary. This way, he’s using the character to obfuscate instead of illuminate.’
You heard it here first: Earnest political commentary = funny; nuance (i.e., not immediately agreeing with Rachel Sklar) = ‘weak.’ But then we get to the real objection: ‘It’s also a terrible idea politically -- that is, for the political process. Now is the time for the fringe players to slip away.’
Sez who? It’s entirely conceivable this cycle that the major-party candidates will be coronated as soon as March, leaving EIGHT EXCRUCIATING MONTHS of not having any comical ‘fringe players’ to lighten the heavy load of a Giuliani-Clinton death-race 2008. Sklar wants to pat junior on the head and tell him to run along now; the adults need to talk.
Or at least strap on the cilice. Take Jon Friedman, the perpetually sour media observer for Marketwatch.com. Please.
It’s depressing to watch respected journalists lower themselves just to tickle Colbert’s funny bone. [Maureen] Dowd is the wittiest columnist anywhere, and [Tim] Russert is the best interviewer in television news. They shouldn’t be kissing up to a comedian, even one as talented as Colbert. People seem to forget that Colbert and Jon Stewart, the host of Comedy Central’s ‘The Daily Show,’ are entertainers. Forget about the ‘fake news’ label that doggedly follows them around. They’re e-n-t-e-r-t-a-i-n-e-r-s. Their job is to make people laugh (and, secondarily, think). They’re not journalists
Well, if loving journalism means believing Mo freakin’ Do is the ‘wittiest columnist anywhere,’ and that your readers are too stoopid to distinguish parody from reality, then sign me up for more of that e-n-t-e-r-t-a-i-n-m-e-n-t.
More intemperance after the jump!
Just in case the humor-starved, anti-Colbert patronizing to those of us who are insufficiently reverent toward the political process wasn’t explicit enough, Media Matters’ Eric Boehlert is here to let us know -- in sadness more than anger, really, and in a tidy 2,045 words -- that it was up to his fellow ‘non-traditional online outlets to strike a skeptical chord; to make the grown-up observation that perhaps this wasn’t the best idea.’ Why? Because ‘Colbert would be an unnecessary distraction.’
Again with the ‘distraction’ stuff. Why, it’s almost as if we’re all supposed to be staring transfixed at the same object, focusing exclusively on the task at hand and blocking out all other ‘unnecessary’ information.
Unfortunately for the Rachel Sklars of the world, Americans of every political persuasion just aren’t buying it. Half of even eligible voters — you know, the ones who bother to register — end up staying home during presidential elections, and something closer to nine out of 10 ignore the endless school board/judgeships/community college dogcatcher elections we enjoy here in Southern California. (And yes, I vote in each one.) Membership in the two major parties has been trending downward for decades, approval ratings for both the president and Congress reach all-time lows seemingly every week, and the only presidential candidate generating anything like spontaneous enthusiasm is a guy who wants to dismantle the federal government.
Which, of course, is cause for head-shaking and tongue-clucking in world of political grown-ups. In a great little Time magazine profile of Ron Paul by Times’ columnist Joel Stein, unreliable pollster Frank Luntz speaks up for the unsilent minority: ‘His supporters are the equivalent of crabgrass,’ Luntz told Stein. ‘It’s not the grass you want, and it spreads faster than the real stuff. They just like him because he’s the most anti-Establishment of all the candidates, the most likely to look at the camera during the debates and say, ‘Hey, Washington, f--- you.’’
He says that like it’s a bad thing.
Students of totalitarian societies can tell you that the one thing the Regime can’t tolerate is mockery. You can complain; just don’t laugh at authority. One of the reasons why these United States won’t ever get anywhere near real authoritarianism is that the mockery is built right into all our best political traditions, and history has shown us there’s always something more interesting — even (shudder) entertaining! — going on than whatever the bores would have us stare at in Washington, DC.