I'm Durn Tired of all this Political Satire!! Are you?

Great Debates
1

I, for one, am tired of political satire. I don’t know about anyone else, but I’ve had my fill of it.

I’m a bit patriotic, meaning I love America, I prefer it’s government over any other, even with it’s flaws and problems, I approve of free speech, and the various rights we have.

I’m not real happy with the two party system, figuring that we need at least one more to break the warring factions in congress and actually get things done.

I’m tired of Reagan, Clinton and now Bush jokes, parodies, skits, cartoons, sound bites, and songs. For one thing, I consider the President to be the most powerful person in the free world, even if he appears to be a goof, and for another I know that those poking the most fun at him could never do his job and would run screaming from the pressure it entails or lead us directly into WW3 within a week of taking office.

I also find it a bit embarrassing for some of the really gross jokes about our Presidents that show up on TV for all of the world to see and snicker at. I figure these comedy bits make us all look like a^s^^l^s to the other nations.

I’m just tired of it all. I’m tired of the Monica jokes, the cigar jokes, the senility quips, the actor quips and the general disrespect.

How about you?

I once thought I could be a better president than a few of the guys we had in office, until I started looking up what the President not only has to do, but how he has to do it and what he has to contend with. Then I figured I would not want the job.

I would probably call in a military surgical strike on Congress, ‘accidentally’ drop a few bombs on the National Inquirer and have most reporters shot on sight. Any reporter exposing national secrets, like they love to do, I’d probably have drawn and quartered on national TV.

Had I been in office when Vietnam was active, I probably would have tossed nukes into China and Vietnam both. In Dessert Storm, Iraq would be glowing in the dark today.

Cuba would invaded and taken over and Castro and son ‘accidentally’ shot, incinerated and somehow, the ashes hit by the biggest non-nuclear bomb we have.

I’d not make a good president. I’m not diplomatic and I certainly could not put up with the pressures coming at the President from every side possible. Clinton might have been a dip, but I admire his ability to handle all of the pressure over the hyped up Monica, like no president ever had an affair before, and still managed to get things done.

Are you tired of all of these political satire things? Like ‘That’s My Bush?’

I sure am.

2

I, for one, didn’t find it all that “insulting” to President Bush - I had expected it to be a free-for-all on our current Commander-in-Chief but found it to be anything but - if anything, they dogged the extreme right and extreme left equally (with the pro-life/pro-choice characters) and it never really focused on what we would expect it to - an inept hillbilly president struggling along and messing everything up (not saying he is one, but that’s what I expected).

And then you have the maid being played by the woman who played Alice in the Brady Bunch movies, I believe - and the neighbor Larry, a direct steal from Three’s Company.

I’m not tired of the satire, and if anything, in this case, it wasn’t so much satire as comic fantasy.

3

Yeah, even if he was appointed, too.

I agree with you that someone with your short fuse (and apparent inability to see the big picture) should not be in the hot seat. I say get over it. You said you support free speech, but the idea of “accidently” dropping bombs on the National Inquirer would suggest otherwise. If you don’t like something don’t watch it.

4

The reason that humorists target the President is simple: he’s the only guy that American’s know about. People have taken polls and found that less than half of the population can identify names like Trent Lott and Tom Daschle (sad, but true). You pretty much have to go after the Pres or else you’ll just confuse most of the audience.

5

I like my satire “blackened,” New Orleans style. Do I want Letterman to feed me a new one nightly? Sure, just like I want my woman to beg for the Little Prussian every night shortly thereafter. Assuming, of course, that I have a woman, or that I watch television. Or have a legitimate President, for that matter.

Political humor is a relatively benign way of expressing opinion, and trust me, besides Orrin Hatch, most politicians can laugh at themselves, so it is in some way effective. Since Aristophanes and probably before, satirization of our leaders has been the national sport of democracies and republics around the world. When such barbs are considered inappropriate, that’s when I start to get worried that the head-choppers are in the house.

Remember, you can always use your television chiefly for viewing noir films of the 1930-1960 era via your VHS or DVD, like I usually do.

6

I love America. I went once - I’d go again if I had the credit. But speaking on behalf of the rest of the world, and living in Scotland (your giant missile base just above England), I’m happy to assure you that… ahem… it ain’t the comedy, dude. It’s all that other stuff.

7

Or Britney Speirs, Micheal Jackson, Bon Jovi, Ricky Martin…

[sub]Damn, I think we might be in trouble[/sub]

8

Man, you don’t know from political satire.

The best shows on Canadian TV are satire… of everything. Politicians of all stripes are roasted, and our comedians berate them live and in person. There’s one woman that barges into press conferences held by the Prime Minister, dressed like Xena, Warrior Princess, and makes fun of his decisions, while swinging a sword.

And he retaliates by inviting her to the big office and demonstrating his golf swing!

Last Sunday (April 1) the CBC sent a guy down to the States for a show called “Talking to Americans”. It was classic, pee-my-pants great.

Y’all are just so dumb. We even got Gore and Bush thanking imaginary Canadian politicians for supporting them during the election campaign. Utterly brilliant!

9

Yeah!! Preach it, brother!!

Satire is nothing but insult and derision heaped upon the undeserving. Hey, our President is nearly royalty–and you wouldn’t satirise royalty, would you?

We good, patriotic Americans first need to abolish the freedoms accorded to the press. Those damnable muckrakers just abuse their freedom by exposing the secret lives of our best and brightest, and by exposing national secrets.

Then we need to severely curtail the first amendment right to free speech. Dammit, free speech should have some limits, right? Maybe we could just make it illegal to say negative things, however humourous, about any publicly elected official. No, that would exempt appointed office. Let’s outlaw trash-talking about all government employees. Sure, it may take a new constitutional amendment, but I think we can pull it off.

Then we need to round up the more egregious offenders and throw the fuckers in jail. Lorne Michaels, Mark Russell, that insufferable pedant Dennis Miller, and those bastards in the Capitol Steps can make up the first chain gang. Sam Clemens, H. L. Mencken, and Ambrose Bierce we’ll try in absentia.

Together we can do it, America!! Wake up before it’s too late!!

10

Sofa King wrote:

Or have a Little Prussian. :wink:
<ducking and running>

11

Created and produced by Trey Parker and Matt Stone (think “South Park”), is not intended to satirize the current occupant of the White House, nor was it ever intended to do so. Had Al Gore been inaugurated, the character’s name in the show would have been Al Gore.

The show is explicitly (according to Parker and Stone) intended to lampoon sitcoms.

12

Andros, just because someone criticizes a certain practice, it doesn’t mean they’re advocating a law against it. In this case, the OP is suggesting that political satire has become excessive to the point of being irresponsible. If most of the “information” the average American gets on national affairs is mocking and focused on petty foibles rather than substance, the country’s interests can suffer. That goes double if that’s the primary image we present to the rest of the world.

Political satire is important and has a proud tradition in this country, but in recent years it has gotten a wee bit excessive IMHO.

13

Why, just the other day, I was talking with some European friends who said, "We had nothing but respect for Bush following his positions on NMD, carbon emissions, the Kyoto Protocol, and international family planning…But, you know, we just can’t take him seriously anymore since we saw that Jay Leno skit! :wink:

14

Whoops. Another way to look like an ass is to remove all the bold and de-bold commands…except for one! Sorry about that.

15

All of the comments are interesting, but I know I just get real tired of all of the satire. Like, for a while there, every time something concerning Clinton came on TV, they were mentioning the cigar incident. I got tired of hearing about it and I got tired of hearing various new reporters managing to throw in the snide comment ‘it sounds like a Lewinsky to me’ on every other report concerning other folks.

It appears to me that we Americans don’t have any respect for anyone anymore. Reagan was perhaps not the best president ever, but he was not the worst and even after he got shot, there were snide comments about his potentially being senile, jokes about his wife and stuff.

I feel that we have gone very far over board with the jokes. There was a radio talk show that I used to listen to daily and, it never failed that as soon as someone famous died, a caller would make a sick joke about it and that opened the door for more, with the hosts encouraging it all. I might not have liked the person who passed on, but I found the joke fest in real bad taste.

Someone mentioned freedom of speech a couple of posts ago but should that give everyone the right to rip someone bloody, time and time again? I’m kind of glad that I’m not famous because I think I might have a hard time getting shredded by the media every day.

Look at Elvis. I liked him, because I thought he was a nice guy, though I was never impressed with his songs and after his death, the toilet and fat jokes that emerged were almost overwhelming. They still go on today.

Look what happened to Michael Jackson over the accusation (which was never proven) that he molested kids. Again, I’m not a fan of his, but he was ragged almost to bits for over a decade and jokes concerning the accusation still pop up today. Jay Leno just couldn’t leave him alone for ages.

I still find the savaging of Clinton as embarrassing because it was done so much, even other nations commented on it and I felt that it made us look like fools. I remember when we used to make fun of some political turmoil going on in France, which portrayed the entire nation as being idiots, and the Clinton thing, in my opinion, made us look even worse.

The thing that got me was that no one cared that our media was making us look like jerks.