Pen-Elayne on the Web

On Bended Knee-Slapping

Lots of bloggers have been talking about the utter inappropriateness of George W. Bush's remarks at the Radio and Television Correspondents Association dinner in Washington on Wednesday. While my favorite line came from Wonkette's review of the after-party ("No hard data on this, but fake journalist Rob Corddry appeared to be the star-fucking object of choice for real journalists"), I also like the observation from Jesse at Pandagon: "It's not funny when the person who did the bad thing jokes about the bad thing." I wish I'd written something like that as an adjunct to my humor essay last month. Although the RTCA remarks are certainly in keeping with Bush's sneeringly arrogant frat-boy attitude towards just about everything that's characterized most of his life (from blowing up frogs for laughs as a kid to mocking death-row inmates to the "trifecta" quip of which Eric at the Hamster reminds us), I don't know that I'd blanketly condemn anything of this sort as obviously "not funny" as much as my usual head-shaking observation that most of the mean-spirited jokes that come out of his mouth are in highly questionable taste.

Still, as evidenced by plenty of successful tasteless comics, this kind of humor does have a willing and appreciative audience. I just wish the audience in this case didn't consist of journalists. In fact, I'm rather saddened that folks aren't more appalled that the RTCA (which doesn't seem to have a website, by the way, and how weird is that for a media-based organization?) regularly hobnobs with the objects of its coverage, as they've apparently been doing for 60 years - so much for the idea of an adversarial (not to mention objective) press! And since the RTCA membership is therefore so subservient to power, you get a tailor-made positive reception for whatever nonsense spews out of the mouths of the powerful (which, in this stage-managed presidential race, counts for a lot). I reckon few of them even realize that Bush's "WMD search" wasn't intended at all as self-mockery, but ultimately as an indictment of them and their utterly ineffectual journalism - a sort of taunting schooyard dance - "I'm rubber, you're glue, I can get away with anything and you won't call me on it, see I'm doing it right now!" That would require some thought, some digging under the surface, some nuance - which I'm not sure too many people at that dinner possessed (besides Rob Corddry)...

Update: For all the people who think Bush's remarks were in bad form, do you think this is as well?