The search for Obama humor

NY Times:

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 Mr. 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 Mr. O’Brien on “Late Night.” The jokes will come, representatives of the late-night shows said, when Mr. Obama does or says something that defines him — in comedy terms.

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They are looking for their comedy among liberals who basically have a hard time seeing his obvious flaws because they relate to his liberalism.

The fact is that Rush Limbaugh has done some very funny stuff on Obama. He even has his own official Obama criticizer, Bo Snerdley, to avoid the inevitable liberal charge of racism by making fun of it.

As for the New Yorker cover, it was an attempt to illustrate absurdity by being absurd. That so many people did not get it suggest just how hypersensitive many people are about Obama. It also illustrates how effective he has been at exploiting that hypersensitivity.