Note to McCain: comedy is hard

February 4, 2008

I know a lot of people in politics find John McCain quite charming, thanks in large part to his biting sense of humor. If he hosts a town-hall forum, for example, and someone asks a challenging question, McCain calls the voter a “little jerk.” It’s not my cup of tea, but it’s apparently all part of the charm.

I’m curious, though, if one of these days, the senator’s acerbic sense of humor might get him into a little trouble. In 1998, for example, at a Republican Senate fundraiser, McCain thought he was very clever when he told a nasty, tasteless joke about Chelsea Clinton, describing the president’s daughter as “ugly,” and suggesting that Janet Reno is a man. More recently, he was asked how soon we can go to war with Iran. McCain, trying to be funny, starting singing “Bomb Iran” to the tune of the Beach Boys’ “Barbara Ann.”

I thought of these this morning after watching a clip ThinkProgress posted from a McCain campaign event in Boston. The senator, apparently doing a stand-up routine, didn’t get too much laughter with this material:

“If anyone has any doubts about my age, please spend some time with my mother. I want to tell you that last Christmas, she decided she wanted to drive around France, so she landed in Paris, went to rent a car, they said she was too old, so she bought a car and drove around France. And she’ll be 96 in just a few days. […]

“So, I’m compelled to tell the story of the two inmates in the state prison in the chow line. And one of them turned to the other one and said, ‘The food was a lot better in here when you were governor.’ (polite chuckles) That’s not a joke you can tell in some states in America. […]

“[After introducing former Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas], and from the great state of South Carolina, Sen. Lindsey Graham. After this meeting, if you’d like to talk to senator, either senator Graham, we will provide translators for any of you that need to, find them hard to understand. I find them hard to — anyway….

“Do you know the difference between a lawyer and a catfish? One is a scum-sucking bottom-dweller and the other is a fish. And so there goes the lawyer joke, the lawyer vote again. I thank all of you for being here.”

Is it me, or does one of these stand out?

I’m trying to imagine what the reaction would be if Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, campaigning in “liberal Massachusetts,” mocked people with Southern accents and suggested his audience might need interpreters to understand those from South Carolina.

My hunch is, the story would be everywhere, and would be validation that Democrats are disrespectful to Southerners. That seems very unlikely to happen here.

(Just as an aside, I do hope the Democratic nominee, whoever it is, remembers this and uses it on the campaign trail later this year. Obama or Clinton should tell voters in the South, “John McCain says he doesn’t understand Southerners and wants to offer interpreters to the rest of the country to understand you. I, however, hear you loud and clear….”)

I don’t want to make too much of this. I realize McCain was trying to be clever, just as he was when he started singing “Bomb Iran” or when he maliciously went after Chelsea Clinton. I suspect there are going to plenty of people who hear all of this and say, “Lighten up; he was just kidding around.” Maybe so.

My point isn’t to be up-tight about bad comedy; my point is that John McCain’s comedic styles are going to get him into some political trouble one of these days. Mocking southerners for their accents seems like he’s playing with fire.

Maybe McCain is aiming for his own show on Fox if he doesn’t win the election?

I keep running into people who think McCain is a great guy. It’s been fed to us nearly daily on MSM since 2000 and people believe it. The press shapes opinions. Clinton is evil, apparently worse than Cheney, and McCain is completely genuine. I remember a quote – those who master the art of appearing to be genuine will have a blank check to rule our world.

  • And I thought the bad one was the joke about the governors. Especially considering that two of his opponents are ex-governors.

    I’ve read about the Chelsie joke, and it is totally tactless and warrants an apology.

  • “I don’t want to make too much of this…”

    McCain is not the first person to poke fun at Janet Reno’s sex nor is he the first person to poke fun at a southern accent. Heck, hasn’t Jeff Foxworthy made a career of making fun of southerners???

    It’s quite refreshing to see a politician let his guard down and not be afraid of the PC Police… as bad as the jokes may be.

  • McCain telling a joke comes off like an older relative who doesn’t realize that their joke is racist/sexist/dumb/out-dated/etc. I wouldn’t hold it against him as I wouldn’t an older relative, but then again the Bomb-Iran joke was highly offensive.

  • I find the first one interesting. The funny seems to be “if you don’t feel like living by laws and/or rules designed to keep people safe, just buy yourself a loophole and go right ahead, do the thing you want to do.” I mean, why on earth would anyone object to a 95 year old American driving around in France?

    Maybe McCain should just joke about bombing France, that would be funny, right???

  • JRS Jr. :

    McCain certainly isn’t the first person to make fun of Janet Reno. I got very tired of the “Janet Reno is a man” jokes during the Clinton Administration. I know that many Republicans think that these jokes are still funny after all these years for some reason, probably for the same reason that the mere mention of the Clintons makes them sputter and turn purple.

    Jeff Foxworthy can make fun of Southerners because he IS a Southerner. Don’t you get the distinction?

    Have you ever told a joke to your buddies over a beer that would be totally inappropriate coming from an after-dinner speaker? Do you know the difference? The distinction isn’t PC, whatever that tired, trite expression means anymore. It’s just good judgment and common sense, which Sen. McCain (and you) seem to lack.

    Steve B. is right – McCain’s sense of “humor” is going to get him into big trouble before much longer.

  • RacerX said:

    Maybe McCain should just joke about bombing France, that would be funny, right???

    I don’t know how funny it would be but it would guarantee him at least 28% of the popular vote.

  • I would not have guessed CB was most offended by the accent joke. I found the lawyer one truly offensive. I wouldn’t have had it come from someone at a social event, but McCain is running for President of the US. The head of the executive branch. Rule of Law. After Gonzales and Mukasey. After the US Attorney scandals. At a time when corruption scandals fill the Senate and McCain hasn’t addressed any of them. After 6 years of no oversight.

  • “Mocking southerners for their accents seems like he’s playing with fire.” McCain tells tasteless and malicious jokes, true, but I don’t think this crosses the line. People all over America are known for their different accents, and they are often the subject of good natured ribbing. In my company in New Jersey we hired a new CFO from Louisiana, and he displayed a booklet entitled, “How to Speak Southern” on the coffee table in his office. It was uproarious, and he delighted in showing it to people.

    When I moved to Idaho, people noticed my New Jersey accent, and kidded me about it. I never took offense, even though I thought mine was mild compared to the stereotype.

  • altho chuck norris may have raised the issue in a ham-fisted manner, mccain’s age should be an issue, IMHO. it’s true you might cut your grandpa some slack for his increasing ‘directness’, while at the same time have the good sense not to put him in charge of international diplomacy.

  • OK, this one is just too weird.

    I’m talking to a friend who is a libertarian-type conservative. Pro-choice, economically conservative, anti-war, political-correctness-is-for-weenies, give the bad guys the chair…all of this I can deal with…’till we get to this statement,

    “I’ll vote for McCain even though he’s pro-war, because he might change his mind once he’s in office.”

    How does he attract ’em?

    Fasten your seatbelts and return your tray tables and seats to their upright positions. It’s gonna be a bumpy election year…

  • Huh. By the end of it, I fully expected the monologue to include McCain tugging at his collar and saying “Take my wife – please!”

    It’s not that politician’s can’t tell jokes, it’s just that maybe they should hire joke writers so they don’t have to steal material from reruns of the Steve Allen show. And that joke about Southerners sounds like something pulled straight from a Hee-Haw skit. Maybe Straight Talk should turn off the Nick-At-Night and go talk to his friend Jon Stewart for some new material.

    Hell, maybe on his next campaign stop Straight Talk can go into a rendition of the old vaudville Niagra Falls bit. That bit’s funnier than any of the stuff up there.

  • one more thought on the mccain age (and judgement) thing: i saw a clip of him and his wife getting off of a plane recently; he was stepping down with one foot followed by his other foot on the same step, giving me the impression that this guy is doddering. contrast that with obama’s prime-of-life vigor and gait.

    i believe this is non-trivial when it comes to our commander in chief.

  • I am someone who has spent a good part of my life in Texas and trained as an economist and I’ll be damned if I can figure out what Phil Gramm is talking about most of the time. Lindsay just needs translation from Republican into English, but Gramm requires one of those babel fish from Hitchhikers that can interpret aliens.

    E

  • McCain’s jokes are a window into his personality and they always have a vicious little streak in them. McCain’s a nasty little man and while I’m not concerned about whether his jokes are PC or not, his penchant for taking “joking” little sucker punches at people points to his proclivity for just just being nasty in general. Being president of the US requires a level of tact that McCain simply doesn’t possess and I’d hate to see the off-the-cuff remarks he’d say to other world leaders.

  • If Dick Cheney drinks a baby’s blood while stomping on puppies, and it’s ignored by almost all media, did it ever happen?

    John McCain is THE media darling right now. None of this will be echoed by anyone but bloggers.

    The presidency is not assured to anyone, and the corporations (i.e. the people who own the media) want a Republican in that seat.

  • Perhaps I’m missing the context, but my assumption was that the “translator” comment was referring to the idea that Senators Gramm and Graham spoke Senatorese, not Southern.

  • not to mention st. john the straighttalker’s reaction to “so how do we beat the bitch?”.

    i thought graduates of annapolis were made officers and gentlemen by acts of congress.

  • He’s a vicious little man. The MSM loves him, Hillary is his friend and Obama is looking for a “new way.” So the people will probably not ever learn about his nastiness.

    Let’s hope he keeps the jokes coming.

  • I found the lawyer one truly offensive.

    Me too. “Do you know the difference between a Supreme Court Justice and a catfish? One is a scum-sucking bottom-dweller and the other is a fish. Haha, thanks, you’ve been a great audience.”

  • JR @#2: “McCain is not the first person to poke fun at Janet Reno’s sex”

    And therefore it’s ok? Please. The fact that he stole this joke from Rush Limbaugh makes it even worse.

    “nor is he the first person to poke fun at a southern accent. Heck, hasn’t Jeff Foxworthy made a career of making fun of southerners???”

    Foxworthy *is* a southerner. He has the right to mock his own group, and to make jokes that go beyond gentle ribbing. Is that really so difficult to understand? It’s the same logic for why blacks are allowed to call each other “nigger” but other races could never get away with it.

    “It’s quite refreshing to see a politician let his guard down and not be afraid of the PC Police… as bad as the jokes may be.”

    This I actually agree with. It’s quite nice when an evil, arrogant, untrustworthy extremist has the good manners to warn us what kind of person he or she is.

  • I think we should send him love, support and encouragement for his humor(lessness). I’d love to hear a litany of tasteless jokes before the general elections. Maybe make a montage…

  • Yes, CB, his humor will get him in trouble, and maybe you can help! There is no blogger out there who has canvassed his shortcomings as well as you. I believe we will owe you a big thanks once it’s over.

  • I’m both a lawyer and, IMHO, a person of high integrity. I know well literally dozens of other lawyers. Virtually all of them are persons of high integrity.

    Years ago, when I was a new lawyer, I would almost always laugh – or at least smile – at lawyer jokes, even if I didn’t find them especially funny. My thinking was this: I shouldn’t take my occupation and myself too seriously. I should be willing to joke about my line of work and myself. I should be a good sport.

    I then attended a meeting at which a speaker talked at length about how certain interest groups in our society – for example, tort-reform advocates – intentionally and systematically impugn the legal profession through the use of both lawyer jokes and non-humorous propaganda, because it serves their economic interests to do so.

    This speaker asserted that this anti-lawyer propaganda adversely affects all lawyers, regardless of the type of law work they do, regardless of who they represent, regardless of their politics, etc.

    The speaker asked a rhetorical question that went something like this: If most in our society find it highly offensive for someone to refer to African-Americans as “niggers” and to state that “most niggers are lazy,” why don’t most in our society also find it highly offensive for someone to refer to lawyers as “shysters” or “ambulance chasers” and to state that “most lawyers are sleazy liars”? In other words, why is wrong to unfairly demean certain racial and ethnic groups, but perfectly O.K. to unfairly demean certain occupational groups?

    This speaker suggested that a lawyer, upon hearing an offensive lawyer joke, should politely speak up and object to the joke, rather than laugh at it or say nothing. And that is what I have done when I’ve heard offensive lawyer jokes since then. A few of the people who have been on the receiving end of one of my polite objections have seemed slightly offended by the fact that I was offended by their joke, but most have taken it very well.

    So when I see that John McCain has publicly referred to lawyers as “scum-sucking bottom dwellers,” I am offended, not amused.

    I was never going to vote for McCain in 2008, so he did not lose my vote when he offended me today with his offensive lawyer joke. But I’m quite sure there are literally millions of lawyers in this country, and I wouldn’t be surprised if McCain lost the votes of at least a few thousand of them by telling his stupid joke today. I hope I’m right about that.

  • A Libertarian is claimed to have said: “I’ll vote for McCain even though he’s pro-war, because he might change his mind once he’s in office.”

    Well, so much for believing in his ‘authenticity’. Conservatives are being urged to vote for this guy because he’s a real conservative, everybody else is going to vote for him because he’s not?

    Beyond dumb.

    Shade Tail wrote: “Is that really so difficult to understand? It’s the same logic for why blacks are allowed to call each other “nigger” but other races could never get away with it.”

    No, they are not. They need to cut it out just as much as anyone else.

  • I’ll bet McCain would rather not talk about his father’s “investigation” of the murder of 34 sailors on the USS Liberty. That investigation, and McCain’s denial of the questions remaining, are a sick joke played on the US Navy which McCain claims to love…

    Now, here’s the kicker: One of the Navy bigwigs pushing hard for a sanitized Liberty inquiry was none other than Sen. McCain’s father, Admiral John S. McCain, Jr., Commander-in-Chief, Naval Forces Europe. He wanted the investigation done in less than a week. Boston said a “proper inquiry would take at least six months.” Admiral McCain also wouldn’t permit Admiral Kidd to travel to Israel or to contact any potential Israelis witnesses. In fact, according to Boston, the written affidavits of 60 witnesses from the Liberty itself, who were hospitalized at the time of the restricted Inquiry, were also excluded from the final report and not considered as part of the evidentiary record. Boston is convinced, too, that the Israelis’ machine-gunning of the Liberty’s lifeboats, while the crew was trying desperately to assist their colleagues that were seriously wounded, was “a war crime.” Boston said higher ups wanted “to put a lid on everything” concerning the Liberty.

    http://www.dissidentvoice.org/July2004/Hughes0712.htm

  • Making reference to a political prisoner who was railroaded by Rove’s Department of Justus, Don Siegelman of Alabama in order to remove political competitors isn’t remotely funny. Just like the Bomb Iran thing it’s tasteless and that is what McInsane is…tasteless. An embarrassment…like trying to give a shoulder massage to a foreign dignitary of the opposite sex. An embarrassment who doesn’t know the first thing about being president.

    Thank god I will never have to worry about this man being president.

  • I certainly hope that someone is recording McCain’s “witty” comments for posterity. Hopefully, the senator from Arizona will one day see how ridiculous and pathetic he is.

    As for his obnoxious comment about Chelsea Clinton at the time her father was in the White House, it is downright cowardly and despicable. Here is a grown man making fun of a young teenager’s looks? Did anyone tell that prig to pick on someone his own size? That episode says a lot about McCain.

  • …he stole this joke from Rush Limbaugh

    I think Saturday Night Live ( I think she was played by a man) followed up by many others… For the records, Barbara Bush was also played by a man on Saturday Night Live and I too found it funny.

  • The thing to remember here, folks, isn’t that these jokes were particularly “offensive.” Sure, some find a few to be, while none of them bother me in the least (of course, they didn’t make me laugh, either … which means they weren’t “jokes” but “dumb statements”).

    The larger point here is that if Obama or Hillary had made, say, the joke about Southern accents, for the next three weeks we’d be reading in the op-ed pages of the NYT about how Democrats don’t respect southerners … Fox would carry an hour-long gabfest about how elitist Democrats think anyone south of the Mason-Dixon line is a stupid redneck … and every rightwing blog would be linking to every other rightwing blog about how the Dems only care about Northeast Elites and Hollywood Socialists.

    But yet Saint McCain did it, so it’s no big deal.

    Hopefully, as CB noted, whomever the Dem nominee is can find a way to use these failed attempts at humor against the mean old bastard. And they’ll have to be the ones to do so, because the media sure as hell ain’t gonna do it.

  • Lance @#28: “No, they are not. They need to cut it out just as much as anyone else.”

    I don’t necessarily disagree. I do find the word distasteful and wonder why so many black people see no problem with using it themselves. But as I’m not black, I feel unqualified to declare that they shouldn’t use such a demeaning and horrid slur to describe themselves. Unless it is in my home or some such personal space where I make the rules, they have the right to decide how to refer to themselves

  • JRS Jr said:
    “For the records, Barbara Bush was also played by a man on Saturday Night Live and I too found it funny.”

    Do you think you’d ever be played by a man?

  • You have to admit though, McCain was funny when he was on SNL doing Barbra Streisand songs. “People, people who love people.” It’s funny on so many levels.

  • MobiusKlein said: Entheo: FDR. Trouble walking does not disqualify one for office.

    trouble walking doesn’t, but poor health/old age should, considering how FDR and Reagan ended their presidencies.

  • Is it me, or does one of these stand out? — CB

    Well, the one that stood out for me was the governor one. I thought it was pretty good as is, but has immeasurable potential for improvement, after Jan 20, ’09.

    Federal pen, two inmates in line for chow, one says to the other:
    the food/beds/TV programs/cell decor… (suggest your own)
    were much better here when you were
    the president, vice-president, secretary of… (suggest your own)

  • It is apparent what McCain and Huckabee are doing.
    Huckabee wants McCain to win so he can be McCains vice-president.

    Exactly what McCain / Huckabee are doing – neither one is very honest.

    Trying to compare Romney to Kerry is ridicules. There is a difference between changing ones mind because of new facts and changing ones mind because the polls have changed.

    Oh well.

    God Bless America and the American people to chose the one HE would have lead the USA, regardless of who it is.

  • I know a lot of people in politics find John McCain quite charming, thanks in large part to his biting sense of humor. If he hosts a town-hall forum, for example, and someone asks a challenging question, McCain calls the voter a “little jerk.” It’s not my cup of tea, but it’s apparently all part of the charm.

    Just think of him as the Don Rickles of the campaign. I never found Rickles particularly funny, either, in fact, nasty and offensive most of the time.

  • And, BTW, the Capitol Steps did the “Barbara Ann/Bomb Iran” bit. I looked it up, and that was their featured MP3 tune for the week of January 14. Not that a comedy-satire group doing it has the same impact as when a potential president with the ability to launch nuclear weapons and the inclination to send young and not-so-young Americans to fight wars makes light of a foreign policy situation …

  • Nanuq said, “And, BTW, the Capitol Steps did the “Barbara Ann/Bomb Iran” bit.”

    Well then, the next time the Bush administration is brought up, can he sing the Dead Kennedys’ “Nazi Punks Phuck Off?”

  • Devils’ Advocate said: “As for [McCain’s] obnoxious comment about Chelsea Clinton at the time her father was in the White House, it is downright cowardly and despicable. Here is a grown man making fun of a young teenager’s looks? Did anyone tell that prig to pick on someone his own size?”

    Oh, please. Chelsie has always been a much bigger person, in every positive way. (with much affection)

  • Mocking Southern Accents will not get John McCain in the slightest bit of trouble, any more than Saint Ronald Reagans “just this side of racist” jokes. That is because Republicans get the automatic Media Free pass on anything they say, no matter what.

    In fact, the most likely media reacion will be for spam e-mails to start circulating, quoting John McCain’s “joke” about Southern Accents, but attributing them to Hillary Clinton! And, whenFoxNews picks it up, everyone will believe it!

  • Re: “Oh, please. Chelsie has always been a much bigger person, in every positive way. (with much affection)”

    That always seems to be the Conservative slough-off line when they give a Free Pass to one of their own. Did that apply to Rush Limbaugh when he posted a picture of Chelsea Clinton and called her the new “White House Dog”?

    When, for once, will a Conservbative actually have to go in front of the cameras and publicly apologize for this kind of behavior.

  • The governor joke was especially tasteless to tell in Massachusetts, which has the nation’s only African-American governor.

  • The lawyer joke was pretty funny 35 years ago when I first heard it. McCain is very old, and it shows.

  • What Senator McCain said about Chelsea Clinton — then a teenager — and implied about her mother and Janet Reno was far worse than that MSNBC reporter said. And, so far as I know, McCain has never publicly apologized to the Clintons for saying it. Both SNL (for an unkind comment years ago) and David Shuster, the reporter, did apologize publicly.

    Politics makes for strange and ugly bedfellows, but let us not be hypocrites.

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