The Obama Channel

[from 12/23/09]

Obama has made it his goal to be the first former president to be a successful stand up comedian. Remember how he handled the heckler during his health care speech to Congress? ("You lie!" "Hey, do I go where you work and interrupt you? Oh, yeah, I'm the president, this is Congress, I'm doing it right now.") It was such a rush for him, he finally decided that's what he wanted to be when he grew up.

Of course, anyone starting out in stand up needs to find his own style. That's just what Obama has been struggling with in recent public speeches. You probably haven't heard about it, because the mainstream media doesn't want to help Obama make it, but thanks to some interested YouTube users I've been able to find the snippets that the networks cut. You can tell he starts out channeling some favorites.

In Oslo, getting the Nobel Peace Prize, he warmed the crowd up with, "Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Distinguished Members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, citizens of America, and citizens of the world: HEY! Stop the God-damned band, I'm working here! Just kidding, you all know I love you. Well, maybe not you in the front row. Look at these folks here. I'm working a beer party at a funeral parlor? You! What's your name? Harald? Harald what? Harald V of the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg? So that's not your wife sitting next to you, then! It's OK, 'Harald', you're not under oath. By the way, ditch the babe, you can do better."

Then he got to the issue that was on everybody's mind. "OK, I know what you're all thinking when you see me here. You're thinking, I thought we were getting Nelson Mandela. This guy is no Nelson Mandela. Don't I know it! Ask Michelle, she can tell the difference! And she reminds me every night! I tell you, I get no respect... "

"Um..., I'm commanding a war now..., you might have read about it in the papers. I think this brings me to my main point..., well it's actually two wars, to be technical about it..., let me tell you how this happened. I was moving into my new house, and as I was looking for a good place to display my collection of Hummel figurines of Homer strangling Bart Simpson, I found plans for an Afghanistan surge underneath a bag of pretzels, dated 2003. The plans, not the pretzels. Imagine my relief, having had nothing but buttered toast all day."

"So. These questions are not new. Since I'm the Peace Prize winner, and I have your attentions, let me tell you the entire history of war, from beginning to now, and why we have wars, and, huh, what are they good for, uh huh."

"War, in one form or another, has always been with us. At the dawn of history, wars broke up the monotony of those begats, dynasties, and dates. Wars enabled civilizations to make up for not having TV, American Idol, and British football."

"Over time, codes of law sought to control international violence, as philosophers, clerics, and statesmen called for regulation of the destructive power of war. Well, no they didn't, but we lawyers have to say they did so we can get paid. The concept of a Just War emerged, to put a name on what we were charging for."

"For most of history, this concept of Just War was rarely observed, and history has spanned -- let's see, there was Thanksgiving, when I pardoned that turkey, and my inauguration, and my election, and some stuff that happened before that -- a bunch of years. There has been a lot of really gnarly stuff going down in all that time."

"But hey, you know, Martin Luther King Jr said it best: 'Violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no social problem: it merely creates new and more complicated ones.' Just so long as we keep having wars, let's all dig on that."

Hmm. Is Alberto Gonzales Funny?

I like to set challenges for myself like that. In the past I have tried to find funny things to say about such ordinarily non-funny subjects as agony, Beacon Hill, bumvertising, and contusions, to name a few. People wonder why I push myself so hard to find humor where it doesn't stick. I point to Catch-22's Orr.

Yossarian, the main character of Catch-22, says of bomber-pilot Orr that he hasn't got brains enough to be unhappy. Orr's planes get shot down more than any other pilot's, but he never minds and greets each new assignment with cheerful enthusiasm. Why? He must be crazy! Doesn't he know he's going to die?

Well, it turns out, he was practicing, so he could get himself shot down in the Baltic Sea close enough to swim to Sweden. Likewise I'm practicing so when the Grim Reaper comes to get me I can laugh at his ass and go out giggling. Alberto Gonzales is just a stand-in for Death.

Here's something funny-ironic. Gonzales grew up in Humble, Texas! Ha! I guess he's trying to get as far from his roots as he possibly can.

In 1996, Alberto Gonzales helped get the Governor of Texas George W. Bush out of jury duty in a drunk-driving case. Among other things he said Bush couldn't serve on the case because he might later be called upon to pardon the accused. An argument so broad it would pretty much excuse all governors and presidents from all jury duty, even where there's no exemption in law. An argument that neglected to mention that Bush had been convicted of drunk-driving. The defense attorney in the case called Gonzales' arguments "laughable!" So we're on the right track! We need to find more stuff Gonzales has done for W!

Speaking of Death, Gonzales was in charge of reviewing death row cases subject to clemency by Governor Bush. Thanks in part to his diligent disregard of most of those cases, the Bush & Gonzales term in Texas is credited with overseeing more executions than in any state ever, in any equal period of time. That's a record you can go to the White House on. I do think, though, they should have taken more care not to execute so many of the feeble of mind, because that could come back to haunt them later.

I'm specifically thinking of Alberto's prize observations this January on the legal theory and practice concerning the writ of habeas corpus. He said, to Congress, that "there is no express grant of habeas in the Constitution. There is [only] a prohibition against taking it away." Now, I don't really believe that Gonzales is so feeble-minded. I think he was just dishing out scraps of offal to our Representatives just to watch them have to eat it. But not everyone would give him the benefit of the doubt as I would. They might think, "Alberto Gonzales isn't shining us on; that would mean he was showing contempt for Congress; that cannot be. Therefore he must be dumb as a rock."

Now Gonzales has exploited a recent amendment to the PATRIOT Act to fire a bunch of US attorneys, more and more of whom we are finding out happened to have resisted Republican pressures to prosecute Democrats. This is funnier than it first appears. It's like when some character in a farce methodically places a banana peel on the floor in the middle of the stage just before another character is due to make his entry. This is called comedic irony, wherein the audience knows someone is going to slip and fall and gets to tittering over the comedic suspense. It's really hilarious when it's the jerk who set the banana peel who finally slips on it.

Of course the fall shouldn't happen too soon, you want to draw it out. Bush & Gonzales should work on their timing.