"Bush Jokes Are No Longer Funny"

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

Bush Jokes are No longer Funny

By Gerald S. Rellick, Thomas Paine's Corner

http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/articleview/3045/1/157/

There was time when Bush jokes and cartoons were funny. I still maintain a large collection of them myself. But it’s difficult to look at them now or those in the papers. It would be like a decent German citizen looking at Hitler cartoons in the Berlin newspapers in 1945, if such were allowed, as Germany was turned into rubble day by day. Bush humor-if there ever was any — is long gone. It represents a dilemma of sorts for political cartoonists. What more can they do? George Bush is a totally failed president - without doubt the worst president in American history, and he is doing his best-albeit probably unconsciously - to bring the country slowly, but inexorably, to ruin. The Republican Congress is totally spineless, trying nothing more to cling to some concept they call “power,” although they too realize at bottom that “Bush is the worst.” How does one poke fun at all this dreadfulness? Humor, which always clings precariously to truth, has lost its edge, overpowered by gruesome reality.

I, along with countless other writers have catalogued the Bush failures, his ineptness, his total inability to govern. But to what end? Yes, his poll numbers are in now in the mid 30’s, unprecedented for a second term president just reelected. And his vice President, the loathsome Dick Cheney, is somewhere in the vicinity of 18%. As one writer pointed out, this is less than believes in space aliens and ghosts - which is about a third of the population. How can one govern when being totally out of sync with America’s values ands standards? Is democracy now on the decline in the U.S.? Have greed, self interest and spin won the day? Has the American public been made fools of by the clever machinations of Karl Rove, the Dr. Frankenstein of American politics, the man who took this half-brained creature, this pseudo-moron, George Bush, and transformed him into president of the U.S.?



All this brings to mind words from Kurt Vonnegut from his book of essays, “Palm Sunday,” when he addressed the graduating class of his alma mater, Cornell, in May 1980. “I pity you people of today for not having truly great leaders to write about---Roosevelt and Churchill and Chiang Kai-Shek....Oh, sure, we (may) have another war coming, and another great depression, but where are the leaders this time? All you have is a lot of ordinary people standing around with their thumbs up their ass.”

So, America, these are the leaders you elected. You chose them. Now, what are you going to do about it?

[C_U_L8R]

1. I don't want to laugh at him...

I just want him to go away

[AndyA]

2. Ditto. n/m

[Ezlivin]

3. I have come to loathe his smirks

Every single time he attempts to say something serious he has to grimace out another smirk, as if he's laughing at those who would take him at his word.

And if he and his buddies are laughing, I ain't in on the fuckin' joke.

[mmonk]

4. In a way, I agree. There's nothing funny about what's

been going on in America with this administration. Humor can't make real fact-based worry go away.

[existentialist]

5. I respectfully disagree. Bush joke are still funny, and from the accounts

I have read Germans did make jokes at Hitler while Germany crumbled around them. It may have been black humor, but it was still humor.


And, because humor is so closely related to truth, humor, in addition to giving amusement, has a role to play in educating the public so long as Bush's pole numbers remain above zero.


I respect your thoughts not withstanding.

[eppur_se_muova]

19. "HEIL.... um... what was his name again?"

This got a German comic bundled offstage by the Gestapo. Satire is the last form of humor to lose its impact -- only when reality is too far gone to mock does satire lose its sting.

[CTyankee]

27. "Heil, heil, in the fuhrer's face"

Spike Jones with fart noises in between the heils. Stephanie Miller plays it often in the context of Bush, Cheney.

[existentialist]

29. Actually, the joke I remember reading about most recently

as Germany crumbled, food was in painfully short supply. American and British bombing raids had become expected nightly, and Russian troops were advancing on Berlin from whom every German woman correctly expected to face rape, one of the lines stated--an old propaganda line meaning now turned round was:

"For all this we have to thank the Fuhrer."

[ThoughtCriminal]

6. Humor is a powerful weapon

It often tells the truth that the powerful dare not speak.

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

11. If it's the right kind of humor, yes...

...but remember that both Lenny Bruce and Carrot Top are classified as "comedians."

I've gotten sick of the "Bush is an idiot" humor, the clips of him laughing at his own stupidity and acting like a fool. The Jay Leno "my room is so small the mice are hunchbacked, badda boom" stand-up crap.

HOWEVER...some of the Jon Stewart "Daily Show" material...ESPECIALLY the clips where they compile five years worth of Bush-isms into potent little 60-second montages...is STILL killer.

Letterman has a nice touch with this stuff too...

:patriot:

[lwcon]

24. I agree

If it's just "Bush is a dope," that just melds in with Leno's philandering-Clinton and fat/drunk-Ted Kennedy schtick. Completely moronic, and might even make the bastard seem a harmless fool.

But if the humor provides us crystalline metaphors for what the Rethugs are doing to the country, that could help swing some swing voters who take those mental pictures into the voting booth in '06 and '08.

And also, to echo some sentiments here, gallows humor is sometimes the only way to keep sane in a world gone mad.

___

Hey, the liberal light is always on at the Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy. Please stop by and say "hi!"

[muntrv]

7. At least one could laugh at Bill Clinton

because his missteps only hurt him and not the entire nation. Furthermore, the GOP's responses to his missteps were a bigger joke.

[madrchsod]

8. i agree he is not funny anymore

there is to much blood flowing in the streets to think what he has done and he said is funny. he is an evil little boy who has taken out his haterd on the world around him. they picked the right person to destroy our country and we all laughed at him while they sold off the country to the lowest bidder..

we can vote but this election will also be fixed. will the american people go into the streets and demand a fair and accountable election and results? maybe they will...

[ellenfl]

9. i have said it before and i'll say it again . . .

people who do not believe in government, do not know how to govern. they are running our democracy into the ground because that is what they want to do . . . make it small enough to drown in a bathtub. you have to have something to laugh at or you will go insane. keep laughing at the moran and his cabal. it's almost the only thing we can do right now. let's hope more and more people are laughing with us.

ellen fl

[Doorknob]

10. The war on the press is just like the war on xmas. Nonexistant. n/t

[Betsy Ross]

12. We laugh so we don't cry.

We keep fighting, marching, writing LTTE, talking. But we still need to laugh or the weight of this oppressive, destructive administration would totally wear us down.

[RufusEarl]

13. The thing that bothers me!

was the comment about not having any leaders in this country. Thats the saddest thing i can think of and it's true, we have no statesmen/women in this country.

[Theide]

14. I disagree completely about the "No Great leaders"

We do have some great statesmen(and women). The problem is that they find themselves at loggerheads with an almost all-powerful media Juggernaut saturated by the viewpoint of venal, narrow minded elitists with a messianic bent.

Jimmy Carter might not be a Roosevelt, but he certainly qualifies for the title of Great Statesman in my book, not just for what he managed to accomplish during his presidency.

Bill Clinton is growing into the same sort.

We still have Robert Byrd.

Gorbachev.

Yeltsin, for a while.

Chavez.

Those come to mind right away, I know I'm leaving well-deserving people out.

[RufusEarl]

15. Ok, all these noted fine leaders

But Bill can't run again Carter can't run again. I'd vote for Hugo, but he's not a citizen. I was speaking of the lack of statesmen/women that will be running for office or holding office in this country. Let's see that list!

[Theide]

17. Wesley Clark

Wesley Clark, and Gore is sort of a larval statesman, as is Clinton.

Bill Richardson

Just off the top of my head.

[tsuki]

18. The great leaders will step up if we need them. Churchill was

thought to be a has been until he was needed.

[TimeChaser]

16. Bush is a parody of himself, now

jokes are no longer needed.

[eppur_se_muova]

20. New Poll Results: Bush more to be "pitied" than "hated"

Lifted from Michael Feldman.:evilgrin:

[Neil Lisst]

21. It's true. I find it increasingly difficult to make Bush laughable.

Instead, I have to make him out to be the demon from hell he really is.
As here:

[Crazy Guggenheim]

22. Does that mean we shouldn't have this?

http://www.democraticwarrior.com/Forum/viewtopic.php?t=443

:popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn:

[Warren DeMontague]

23. Funny as a triple bypass.

Or a drunk driver plowing into a crowd of people.

Yeah, the last six years have been a laff-riot.

[newspeak]

25. Bush's jokes were never funny,

they were scary and obscene. How many times he told his base that he got lucky and hit the trifecta (with a chuckle). Yes, how laughable about the people killed in those planes and in the towers--jumping out of windows to the ground. How obscenely funny!!!:sarcasm: Then, there was the "joke" about not finding any WMDs-looking under the desk, around the desk; nope, no WMDs--oh what a joke---pulling the wool over most American's eyes while our fathers, mothers, children are horribly disfigured, mentally broken and bleed on the streets in Iraq! And, the Iraqi people, especially children, murdered. Or, through those young innocent eyes, have seen their family members murdered. To laugh at the horrors of war, it seems must make Bush a regular stand-up comedian. I find nothing, absolutely nothing, comical about Bush. And, the one joke America will be paying for is "to bad this isn't a dictatorship, as long as I am the dictator."

[sheelz]

26. It's not funny anymore...

I find it interesting how we progress as a group.

[0007]

28. Let the folks at the Hague laugh at this pathetic asswipe.