Should presidents be comedians? (March 24)
By Chuck Doud
The Madera Tribune
President Obama’s offhand joke last Thursday night on the “Tonight Show,” about how he bowled as poorly as a Special Olympics bowler, raised some hackles. Some people thought the remark, which poked fun at the developmentally disabled Special Olympians, was just an amusing slip of the tongue, while others thought it was rude and insensitive.
I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. I’m sure he was only grabbing the comparison out of the air in an effort to be funny — not to insult anyone.
Of course, if President Bush had made the same slip of the tongue, 90 percent of the editorial writers in the United States would have written at length about what an insensitive S.O.B. he was.
But that was then, this is now. Obama’s 100 days of honeymoon aren’t up yet.
But there is one thing that bothers me: What in heck was he doing on the “Tonight Show” in the first place? He’s the president of the United States — not the entertainer in chief. Does he hold the office in so low a regard that he equates a late-night talk show with the serious discourse of government?
The campaign is over. The days of appearing on late-night comedy shows and letting Jay Leno — or any comedian, for that matter —make fun of him in order to schmooze a few idiots for votes should be in the past.
Would Washington, or Lincoln, or either of the Roosevelts, once they were president, have thought it a proper role of the commander in chief to spend time making fools of themselves on TV?
That isn’t to say Obama shouldn’t develop a sense of humor, or that he shouldn’t display it, or that he shouldn’t make use of television.
But to a president, a sense of humor is like the nuclear briefcase that follows him around — he should know how and when to use it or it can do a lot of harm.
