Copyright 2004 Ben S. Pollock
Thursday, October 27, 2004. "The Wall Street Journal" today in a feature recalled Gracie Allen’s 1940 run for president, noting also Eddie Cantor’s in 1932 and Will Rogers in 1928 and also 1932. And it mentioned Pat Paulsen’s runs in 1968, ’72 and ’76.
No comic is doing so this year, evidently. And for the immediately previous divisible-by-four election years, none come to mind. Obviously, the country is taking itself far too seriously.
No? It’s an individual entertainer’s choice to try on Paulsen’s hat, tossing it into the ring? But it would’ve happened. Some standups or disk jockeys probably did test it a few times and it died, as opposed to killing.
Those were not easy times, the years of the best-known earlier mock campaigns (I didn’t know of Allen’s or Cantor’s). Depression, looming war, an unwinnable war (in rough chronological order). Still, America looked to its entertainers for some distracting hijinks.
Now? Imagine if Jon Stewart or one of his staff, or Bernie Mac or Chris Rock announced a candidacy. The hounds of the cable and radio talk shows would insist they grow up, look at 9/11. Can’t you imagine it?
This may not be so much out of serious outrage but a need to fill time.
Jon Stewart says extremes in viewpoints make good ratings if lousy democracy, and he is surely right, and surely right to have spoken up to Tucker Carlson as he did. Now having seen a piece of the video, I believe he planned to go on Tucker’s show and play along good-naturedly — for he is promoting a book and comparable appearances combine his usual off-show jocularity with sober observation — but he acted like somebody just before air time angered Stewart, maybe a program assistant or Tucker himself.
I wonder if the hounding political talk shows don’t suffer from the same complication as Stewart’s "The Daily Show," Leno or Letterman, or any such program: The search for material. These all have writing or at least production staffs charged with coming up with new material. It’s tough.
If your format is jokes, sketch comedy or fake news, the staff moves in that direction. If your format is interview, serious banter and call-in, then writers, schedulers, researchers and program coordinators find guests and their points and issues to discuss.
All of these things feed off one another. Jon Stewart has been bylined in "The New Yorker," well, the credit clearly includes his staff. Cool Jon could have written about the problem with "Hardball" and "Crosstalk" in that sort of venue. Or on his show. Or guest-hosted "Saturday Night Live," and I bet he’s on the short list there.
But he chose to go into the lion’s den to deliver the message? By his own admission he watches them, CNN in particular. He knew in the live format he thus would not be allowed to complete a sentence (as much as he’d know that he’d have no control on how "60 Minutes" would edit the interview that aired three nights ago, which did favor him).
That’s why no comic is running for president. Not that it wouldn’t be funny, but the mass media — G-d help us, we finally have become the Fourth Estate though it’s one of those bankrupt estates that offer cheesy tours of the castle because its legitimacy as well as aristocratic prestige and power has been riddled by gaffes, arrogance and fate — would not let such a stunt go unpunished. Which is real sad.
The drama in today’s human comedy is wondering how Bush is getting half the polls even days before the election. Sure, Kerry’s unknown, but he’s got legitimate experience (which shows "bass ackward" when he sounds phony, as members of Congress all end up doing). And sure, you can’t question the impulse of so many voters to not change horses in the middle of the stream, rather leaders in the middle of a war.
Until you question the war. Against terror, against Iraq, against Afghan’s Taliban, against George II’s Axis of Evil? You don’t have to go past the name to wonder about this administration and that four more years like the last may mortally wound the United States.
A "New Yorker" article this month focuses on efforts to find Missing In Action bodies in Southeast Asia. It said Vietnamese call the conflict the American War. -30-
