When
you are the target of satirical humor it ain't
always so funny. Barbs aimed at you personally
usually don't make you smile, especially if there
is a grain of truth buried inside the humor wrapping.
Remember the Saturday Night Live parodies of then
candidate George W. Bush by comedian Will Ferrell?
He skewered "Dubya" by capturing the
stilted speech patterns and emphasizing the "down
home" drawl. The humor did not help Bush or
lend much credence to the candidate's claims of
expertise in complex international and domestic
issues.
Recently,
while many of us stood by waiting for the daily press
briefings to emerge from Bush's Crawford Texas presidential
retreat, others turned to Mad Kane's "Dubya's
Dayly Diary" to get the scoop. To Democrats
and "bleeding heart liberals" the diary
must represent an accurate account of the Presidents
thoughts as he tends to the affairs of state. To
conservatives, and probably to Mr. Bush himself,
the diary must seem a direct attack on the intellectual
capacity of the worlds super power leader.
To
make a judgment about "Dubya's
Dayly Diary" satire
before the evidence
is reviewed is unfair,
especially to New York
columnist Madeleine
Kane. I won't say it
is funny. You'll have
to decide that. But
if you come to the
conclusion that the
humor wrapping surrounds
grains of truth, you'll
have to decide where
in the political spectrum
you stand and whether
you believe in the
man or his proclamations.
Then you can judge
if it is funny.
The
previous President
of the U.S. was one
that made some of us
laugh with him as he
struggled with problems
of morality. It may
be that this President
is one that makes us
laugh at him because
of his perceived lack
of intelligence. I
hope not. In any case,
take a look at Mad
Kane's Dubya's Dayly
Diary". Get mad
or get amused but see
if you can find the
kernels of truth.
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