Hollywood Just Can't Find Anything Funny About the Obamessiah

Political humor is a mainstay of the late-night shows...until now. There are still plenty of jokes about McCain, but the joke writers can't seem to find anything funny to say about the Obamessiah:

What's so funny about Barack Obama? Apparently not very much, at least not yet.

On Monday, The New Yorker magazine tried dipping its toe into broad satire involving Senator Obama with a cover image depicting the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee and his wife, Michelle, as fist-bumping, flag-burning, bin Laden-loving terrorists in the Oval Office. The response from both Democrats and Republicans was explosive.

Comedy has been no easier for the phalanx of late-night television hosts who depend on skewering political leaders for a healthy quotient of their nightly monologues. Jay Leno, David Letterman, Conan O'Brien and others have delivered a nightly stream of jokes about the Republican running for president — each one a variant on the same theme: John McCain is old.

But there has been little humor about Obama: about his age, his speaking ability, his intelligence, his family, his physique. And within a late-night landscape dominated by white hosts, white writers, and overwhelmingly white audiences, there has been almost none about his race.

"We're doing jokes about people in his orbit, not really about him," said Mike Sweeney, the head writer for O'Brien on "Late Night." The jokes will come, representatives of the late-night shows said, when Obama does or says something that defines him — in comedy terms.

"We're carrion birds," said Jon Stewart, host of "The Daily Show" on the Comedy Central channel. "We're sitting up there saying 'Does he seem weak? Is he dehydrated yet? Let's attack.' "

But so far, no true punch lines have landed.

Why? The reason cited by most of those involved in the shows is that a fundamental factor is so far missing in Obama: There is no comedic "take" on him, nothing easy to turn to for an easy laugh, like allegations of Bill Clinton's womanizing, or President George W. Bush's goofy bumbling or Al Gore's robotic persona.

"The thing is, he's not buffoonish in any way," said Mike Barry, who started writing political jokes for Johnny Carson's monologues in the waning days of the Johnson administration and has lambasted every presidential candidate since, most recently for Letterman. "He's not a comical figure," Barry said.

What this tells me is the writers have fallen into the whole Obamessiah image, or are scared that any humor directed his way will come back at them as charges of racism. Just look at the heat the New Yorker is taking over their satirical magazine cover cartoon.

Obama has done his best to inoculate himself from any criticism by claiming it would be based on his color, and it's working with the Hollywood crowd.

Surely there are plenty of themes which could be used to poke fun at Obama if they really wanted to. How about his arrogance, his overcontrolling wife (there should be some easy jokes about things she's suddenly "proud" of), the various Internet rumors about him, his constant flip-flopping on campaign positions, etc. I'm not a comedy writer, but I think I could come up with a few for the right price.

Jay, Conan, Dave?? I'm available.