Without Bush to Kick Around Political Humorists Are Foundering

As Camile Paglia says in her previously mentioned column:

Salon reader Cecil W. Powell writes: "The failure of talkers on liberal radio is in large part due to an absolute inability to poke fun at themselves." How true! Liberal hosts like to snap and snip and chortle snidely, but they are weighed down by a complacent superiority complex, a paralyzing sanctimony. They mistake irony for wit.

The lack of humor on the left has never been more apparent than it is now that Bush has left office and their Chosen One has ascended to the throne. According to this Politico piece the folks who made their living ridiculing George W. Bush suddenly can't find anything funny about Obama:

After nine years of poking fun at George W. Bush, political humorist Daniel Kurtzman may not have the last laugh.

Since the Texan left office, Kurtzman’s Bushism business — a collection of linguistic errors by the former president — has also gone south.

Phrases like “they misunderestimated me” and “I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully” have been key attractions on Kurtzman’s About.com political humor site, which tracks funny photos, jokes and gaffes in the political world.

But now Kurtzman says he’s struggling to find a new political punching bag to keep his Bushism traffic numbers up. He’s combing newspapers, television and speech transcripts to expand his new line of Obamaisms, Bidenisms and even Palinisms, but the pickings have been hit or miss.

“There’s just not a lot of material to go on,” Kurtzman said. “After eight years of Clinton and eight years of Bush, it’s like people have to get creative and work for a living.”

Running the website is still one of Kurtzman’s several jobs, but the work has become harder and traffic numbers have dipped. It’s left him praying for a break, potentially in the form of a Palin congressional run or some uncensored slips by Vice President Joe Biden.

“Traffic is not on the same level of Bush, because my material isn’t there,” he said. “And I think we can safely say that Obama will never be able to live up to the Bush legacy.”

Kurtzman isn’t the only businessman seeing his Bush boon implode.

Political humorist Bill Feldspar, who has claimed to have made a living for eight years selling T-shirts comparing Bush’s facial expressions to those of chimpanzees, has disappeared from the political humor scene. He admitted in a November column that he was struggling to find a replacement for Bush.

Celebrity cookie baker Susan Caliendo tried to tout her line of George and Laura Bush and Dick Cheney cookies from her Rolling Pin Productions company around 2008, but sales were nonexistent. The only interested customer was celebrity George Clooney, a known Obama supporter, who Caliendo says bought a round of the George W. Bush cookies to distribute to friends as gag gifts. He’s said to have given one to Michael Moore, who reportedly bit the head off.

“I thought they would sell well, but we didn’t even sell a Cheney cookie,” said Caliendo. “Instead, after the election, people requested I make Al Gore cookies.”

Jules Crittendon has more on the deep recession hitting the Bush-bashing business. Since criticism has either been jumped on by the Obama people, or declared racist by various defenders of the Obama faith, you can understand why the Obama humor business is hurting.

Even Jack Kennedy, the last King of Camelot, got his share of ribbing.