I ordinarily don’t watch any of the late night television talk-shows such as Letterman, Conan, Fallon, etc. However, I happened to catch an opening monologue on Letterman and I was surprised that the target of his political jokes were mostly focused on ex-President Bush. As a result, I decided to check the NewsMax web site, which provides the transcripts from most of these shows, to perform a more fact-based evaluation.
Based on a review of the shows over the past 30 days, almost all comments about national politics do not make O’bama the “butt of the joke”. His name is typically mentioned, but only as a prelude to cracking on someone else… Talk about handling with kid gloves. It almost appears reverential… Some excerpts:
- O’Brien (6/9/09): “Speaking of President Obama—Earlier today, President Obama spoke at a town hall meeting in Green Bay Wisconsin. Half of the Wisconsin crowd had never seen an African-American and the other half had never seen a skinny person.”
- Letterman (6/5/09): “President Obama is continuing his World tour. Yesterday he was in Egypt. Did you see that? He visited the pyramids of Giza and called them “awe-inspiring.” That was an improvement over President Bush’s tour of the pyramids – he called them “pointy.”
- O’Brien (6/5/09): “President Obama gave an historic speech yesterday in Egypt. President Obama impressed listeners by beginning his speech with the traditional Islamic greeting, “assalaamu alaykum.” It was especially impressive, because a year ago, President Bush opened with “Shalom, Amigos”
- O’Brien (6/2/09): “Here’s some news: Despite opposition from the public, President Obama says he’s determined to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay. To make sure Guantanamo Bay closes, Obama said the new warden will be the CEO of General Motors.”
- Fallon (6/3/09): “Best of luck to President Obama, who just left for his five-day trip to Egypt and Saudi Arabia. And good luck to Sasha and Malia, on their first keg party.”
- Leno (5/27/09): “People in Beverly Hills had a lot questions for Obama about healthcare. They want to be sure tummy tucks and butt lifts are covered under Medicare.”
- Fallon (5/20/09): “Both President Obama and Dick Cheney will give competing speeches tomorrow on national security and terrorism. It’s kind of like “American Idol,” except one of them got voted off months ago.”
- Fallon (5/14/09): “Barack Obama has announced that his administration will not release photos of prisoners being abused. It’s not because they don’t want to, it’s because they don’t have the password to Dick Cheney’s camera phone.”
- Leno (5/11/09): “President Obama did a great job of delivering jokes at the White House Correspondents Dinner this week. NBC is trying to sign him for the 9 o’clock slot.”