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Obama’s funny business — 61 Comments

1. The press all laughed at the joke. At least he apologized. The press has not, at least not that I have heard. I expect to hear many more snarky comments from our president elect. When will the press learn snark from real humor.

2. Thanks for posting this! If there is/was a second Kennedy, I think it clear, from this footage, that Bill Clinton fit that role much more than Barack Obama will ever be able to.

   But Limbaugh made the interesting observation that while McCain was able to laugh at himself, Obama is not – and that is so important in communicating humor.

   The liberal illuminati seem doomed to take themselves too seriously most of the time – Kennedy and Clinton stepped out from under that.

   The best thing Obama could do is relax – and I think right now at least, it’s the last thing he’s able to do. With leftist activists swarming around, wanting to Get Theirs after eight years, it may surprise him that this presidency is less about him, and more about them.

3. Agree on a lack of charisma, as I said someplace else.

   His oratorial style is rather irritating: didactic, self-aggrandizing, doctrinaire. Let alone the endless pauses – where he steers off teleprompter -, all these endless ‘eeerms and ahems”, and the searching expression in his eyes when he’s at a loss for word.. Afraid, he’s just a bit slow.

   More work for David Axelrod, I guess.

4. As a rule, with rare exceptions, the left has never enjoyed the benefits of a sense of humor. The extreme left seems completely unaware as to its existence. You’ll never find a more relentlessly severe bunch in any society – it’s quite the phenomenon. PE Obama’s tin ear for humor is yet another indicator as to his place on the left of center political spectrum. Damn I miss Reagan.

5. This isn’t a man good at off the cuff remarks. Without his telepromter, he is the dry and professorial sleep whisperer that we see in his 2001 interview.

6. These early day events will be so forgotten, but yes he’s not a witty person.

7. Can narcissists laugh at themselves? I have known charismatic men who were completely humorless when it came to their own schtick.

8. I seem to be immune to Obama’s supposed charisma (I just don’t perceive it).

   Is that because you can’t drop your mental BS filters or do you really not feel anything, positive or negative, when you think about Obama’s words as you hear it?

   But the similarity stops there. In Kennedy’s time there was an atmosphere of respect, a certain formality and dignity even amidst the banter, a deference that was standard back then but is now absent.

   The military knows power ultimately comes from the President, because it is through the Constitution and the people of America the Constitution exists to protect, that the military has the right to use lethal force.

   The MSM believed similar things back in Kennedy’s time: that ultimate power rested with Kennedy through the office of the Presidency, from the US Constitution, and etc. After Vietnam, the MSM now realizes that power comes from their ability to manipulate people and that is not a monopoly the President or the Constitution holds over the American people.

   Fanatics don’t really tend to have a sense of humour. That is just how it is.

9. Radical. Self-aggrandizing. Narcissistic. No sense of humor.

   What could possibly go wrong?

10. Ymarsakar,

    Correction – power does not come from the president.

    It comes from the people via the US Constitution.

    The president just happens to be appointed Commander of the US armed forces.

    On the flip side, I fully expect the MSM to drum up just how GOOD the economy is under this fake.

11. Oh Goody. America has elected the ultimate poseur as their president. That’s all we need. Now who’s gonna save the world’s ass when it gets itself into trouble the next time?

12. I don’t think Obama’s humorless, exactly. Ruth H. observes that the press can’t distinguish humor from snark. We rarely see Obama’s humor, but when we do it’s pure snark, which is not playful, but savage and cynical, meant to be used with compatriots who completely share your worldview.
    I think Neo’s really on to something when she talks about the deference of the press in the Kennedy era — a deference to the office of the presidency, not, necessarily, to the current occupant. That’s the tension that Kennedy plays off of so charmingly. He disarms them with humor. Obama’s press is pre-disarmed, and they feel no deference to the office, only a worshipful identification with power, in this case embodied by O.

13. It comes from the people via the US Constitution.

    I’ve already addressed that.

14. I agree that Barack is an unfunny man. For myself, I appreciate humor –hunger for humor– and if a truly witty, funny man happens to crack a lemon? Well, so what? I defend him. If you seize the moment that suggests a joke, you’re not always going to fairly formulate the words that express that humor. “Oow, bad one” you say, and move on. (Jay Leno would say: “I’m dying out here, help me out.”) The humor was there, just not the expression.

    With Barack I don’t know. I think that to crack a joke there has to be some joy in your personality. With Barack I think there is none.

    As to the “anti-female” viscousness? I don’t see it at all. I see only viciousness; it just so happens that the enemy is female. What ever works.

    In general Barack seems to attract the vicious, which is one of the reasons this election was such a defeat for America. There is no joy on the hard left, only triumph. (And as others have aptly noted, snark.)

15. Thank you for posting this! I have been commenting on how much Obama seems to lack any humor about himself or anything else – just look back to the New Yorker incident. The New Yorker’s cover of Obama and Michelle was pure satire and he failed to recognize it. The artist, Barry Blitt, satirized the use of scare tactics and misinformation in the presidential election to derail Barack Obama’s campaign. Granted it was probably inappropriate, but perhaps so was his joke about Nancy Reagan. Obama could have easily diffused the New Yorker situation with a bit of humor.

    McCain by contrast, was quite amusing in a self-deprecating way. I seem to recall his line from his New Hampshire days, whereby concluding a town hall session, he stated, “now I can take any questions, comments, or insults” I think McCain’s humor might stem from his soldier days. It’s the kind of humor I have see among soldiers (even non-U.S.).

16. The Al Smith dinner proved that even with prepared material, he can’t do humor, why would he even dream of trying it off-the-cuff?

    I think one reason he can’t do humor is because he’s not conversational. He can deliver prepared remarks in a conversational manner- as in campaign stump speeches, but when he’s on his own, he’s a droning circuitous think-as-you-go speaker with no sense of personality, because he’s trained himself to not reveal anything when he speaks. He’s learned that when he does, he reveals too much of what’s behind the curtain. As a result, almost everything he says is calculated and filtered, and has all the personality and conversational qualities drained from it.

17. Until then hush up.

    That’ll be the same message 5 months from now.

    Don’t criticize the President cause it is unpatriotic to break the group circle!!

    Come on, we already know the KGB gig here. We don’t need to see it again.

18. Anybody that believes the supporters of Obama can differentiate “criticism that needs to be hushed up” from constructive criticism, they’ll be in for a giant surprise soon enough.

19. look yermadwanker you are a lunatic. KGB? what on earth are you talking about? Grow up. Stop living your violent little fantasy and respect your new President. America is a democracy in which the losers go along with the winners knowing that the whole thing will change in a few years. It is not world of warcraft it is the real world

20. This actually does bother me.

    A sense of humor helps keep you balanced, keeps you from being too full of yourself, from taking yourself too seriously.

    I honestly believe he doesn’t have one (ridiculing others is not evidence to the contrary).

    This is worrisome when applied to anyone in charge of anything; but, for the next leader of the free world?

    Not good, NOT good.
    …

21. hey sockpuppet. I’m going to ask you a question that caused one of my Obamabot friends to go unhinged: what has O done with his life besides have a career that’s about his career? What has he done that was led or informed by heart, soul or faith instead of ego and ambition? That’s besides his family. That part of him is real. Ask those same questions about McCain or Palin. Also, about Harvard law: passing tests is achievement not intellectualism though intellect is required. Nor is passing tests wisdom. I think O is in over his head and has not the widom to realize it.

22. Obama’s triumph was winning the Dem. nomination. I doubt he ever intended to achieve the Presidency. He’s much better suited to criticism, including back-stabbing, and Wright-like preaching to the susceptible.
    But now that he’s the One, the story changes. I’ve posted before Obama=Chavez. I’m not alone: this week saw a rush of demand for AR-15s and even Kalashnikovs from US citizens in fear of the coming police state.

23. “America is a democracy” by “sockpuppet”

    Wrong answer. The United States of America is a Constitutional Republic.

24. I see we now have a new, youthful, enthusiastic troll named “sockpuppet.” How did you find out about neo’s blog, young whippersnapper?

    We’re not a cheering section for Oobonga. If you want that, get a DVD of the big party in Grant Park and have your friends over to celebrate the celebration. Have fun on Inauguration Day, because it’s all business after wards.

    And you people will then reap what you have sown. For viciously savaging a good and decent man for the past eight years, strap it on and get ready for the ride. Payback’s a bitch.

25. Hi, Neo

    Boy, you stirred up a hornet’s nest here. More venom than usual…

    Great piece. I agree that there is something terribly wrong when a person is absent a sense of humor. I will leave it to the shrinks to interpret what that may be due to but I have to say that it is, at a gut level, one of the things that I do not like about the guy.

    Compare and contrast the performances at the Al Smith dinner. McCain had the place in stitches – Hillary included. Obama’s performance was stiff and forced. The audience reaction was perfunctory and polite.

    This does not bode well, folks.

26. Obama hasn’t ever achieved anything on his own without powerful connected friends, or affirmative action. It’s just not in him at all. Without speechwriters and ghostwriters, and tough guys to run interference, the man is deflated, nothing.

    How long will this stupid fool of a nothing last before even the idiots in the press start making fun of him? I know the media is stupid. But a few of the corrupt whores in the media will eventually wake up and see their own degradation for an unworthy cause and get tired of it.

27. Office of the President Elect?

    What the hell is that? Never heard of it.

    Must be some of that change I’ve been hearing about.

    That man is afraid to be out of the limelight for five seconds. He must be afraid buyer’s remorse among the people. He should be.

28. fredhjr:

    sockpuppet hasn’t hit the 12th grade yet. He won’t know the U.S. is a republic until he does. That is, if he makes it that far.

    sockpuppet, does this sound familiar?

    …..and to the REPUBLIC,
    for which it stands………….

29. What is it about the far left that excludes humor? Does anybody have a theory? Humor is based on something — some broad easy root in the self — that the far left does not have. Why?

30. Neo,

    Thanks for finding that video. I had almost forgotten how incredibly attractive Kennedy’s sense of humor made him. Whatever flaws he had, and there were of course many, that one gift made it hard not have a certain sympathy for him.

    Jamie Irons

31. Greetings:

    Shouldn’t public insults require public apologies?

32. Mr. Obama is much like his court jester to be, Mr. Emanuel, extremely humorless, almost to the point of dullness. Are not both the product of the equally humor-free Chicago emocrat Party political machine? I do not recall humor from the elder, late Mayor Daley or his son. Humor and intelligence do go hand in hand, and sadly, Mr. Obama has not been impressive in terms of intellect; “slick” was interpreted for intellect during the campaign. But, Mr. Obama was quite serious when he pondered, whether, “he had visited 57 of our 58 states.” It was not the stress of a campaign that results in this kind of non-idicator of smarts, just as when he made it an administration goal, “to do away with all forms of carbon.” One can assume that knowing how many states we have is important for a President, just as taking a basic chemistry course. No matter how many advisors Mr. Obama will have to tell him what to do, understanding what it is he will do, may have significance beyond our nation’s geography and a bit of chemistry.

    None if this reaches the heights of Bidenesque gaffs: “The answer to what this economy needs is a three-letter word: ‘JOBS'” Of course, Mr. Obama did not follow Mr. Biden’s observation that FDR’s “we have nothing to fear…” speech was televised to the waiting nation, but not many seem to take Mr. Biden seriously (except, apparently, Mr. Obama and this is not a good sign of Mr. Obama’s intelligence, either).

33. Are not both the product of the equally humor-free Chicago emocrat Party political machine?

    “Now I’m going to be funny for you: Is this funny for you? How about this? I’ve got some funny.”

    “I’m going to make myself be funny for you….”

    “Is this funny?”

    “OK, enough of that bullshit: I don’t care if I’m funny or not and I don’t care if you laugh, but you’ll do what we want and you’ll f’n smile while you do it–pretty soon you’ll be laughing.”

    “And that will be funny for both of us.”

34. Here’s the Funny!

    Yeah, we pimped Obama to you:

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/07/AR2008110702895.html

    Hahahaha! Your fault for believing us! Rube!

35. Watching the Kennedy clips really brought home the difference between him and Obama. Kennedy had authority. He was the “alpha male” in the room and nobody doubted it. Reagan was the same. Having confidence in your own authority frees you to laugh at yourself.

    Obama doesn’t have that kind of authority. He’s brittle and tense. I suspect his cabinet will be a troupe of nonentities and bootlickers (look at his VP choice).

36. I suspect his cabinet will be a troupe of nonentities and bootlickers (look at his VP choice).

    Good point: he is, in fact, a bootlicking nonentity.

    We’ll all miss the evil Darth Cheney before this is over….

37. Yeah, Obama isn’t stupid like Gov Palin when it comes to civics. He forgot to mention Jimmy Carter, George HW Bush and George W Bush in his list of former presidents. Well, one out of four ain’t bad.

38. Check the link below to the American Spectator for an article that names names of the McCain staffers who ran his campaign and the likely people who are leaking outrageous lies about Sarah Palin. Cowards, the lot of ’em! Not only do they not know how to fight a Marxist enemy, they are fearful that a woman from Alaska, who is bright, energetic, a quick study, and a solid family person could possibly emerge down the road to lead the conservative wing of the party.

    People who continue to believe the rumors about Palin being a ditz truly are poor judges of character and intelligence. They fall for the faux sophistication of the media.

    http://spectator.org/archives/2008/11/07/over-before-it-began

39. I will grant Oobonga this: I think he is way more intelligent than his vice president is. Joe Biden cannot hold anyone’s jockstrap. Hell, he is a man who is confused in his inmost thoughts when he isn’t plagiarizing.

    I’m dead serious. Oobonga may have a very thin resume, but I think he’s a sharper knife than Biden.

    Hang on for the next four years. We’re a great nation and we will survive it. And the kiddies who voted for Oobonga are going to learn the lesson many of us learned in 1976-1980.

40. “And you people will then reap what you have sown. For viciously savaging a good and decent man for the past eight years, strap it on and get ready for the ride. Payback’s a bitch.”

    Amen…

41. “Hang on for the next four years. We’re a great nation and we will survive it. And the kiddies who voted for Oobonga are going to learn the lesson many of us learned in 1976-1980.”

    Precisely the lesson I learned, Fred. 1976 was the first and last time I voted for a Democratic presidential candidate. The buyer’s remorse didn’t set in until a couple of years later, when I was an active-duty Army lieutenant trying to scrounge parts to keep my vehicles running because my unit didn’t have the funds to obtain them (a well-connected platoon sergeant helped me a lot). And we were on the “front lines” in Korea. I shudder to think what my Stateside counterparts had to go through. But after Jimmah burned us, I discovered that Reagan had a lot more to offer. I’ve stayed on the right ever since. We’ll make it through this period also, although it may not be easy.

    I think we all understand that Obama wasn’t running for Comedian-in-Chief. But having a sense of humor helps to put things in perspective and can aid one to deal with situations that may not be funny at all. Obama will have many of those in the next four years. We’re all in trouble if he takes everything too “seriously”.

42. I’ve pretty much avoided listening to Obama speak because I find his style and voice quite annoying. I did hear a little snippet from his election night speech, though, where he says “change has come to America.” Given the situation, and the setting, I would have thought the words would have and should have sounded uplifting and inspirational. Instead, they simply sounded arrogant. I think that’s probably because he does seem like a man who lacks joy and a sense of humor. Instead of speaking as one of us, with empathy, he sounded more like he was pontificating from on high. He really sounded full of himself. I didn’t find it appealing or inspiring at all. Reagan could have said those same words and made them sound completely different.

    Speaking of Obama’s voice, about a week ago I heard portions of a radio interview he had given some years ago with a program in Chicago. I think it was the one where he talked about the Supreme Court failing to ignore the Constitution in terms of economics. Anyway, what really struck me is how much better and more pleasant and more toneful (probably not a word) his voice sounded then. I mean, I almost couldn’t believe it was him. He didn’t sound anything like that the man I’ve heard recently. The new Obama’s voice is harsh, and staccato, and just completely lacking in warmth (at least the little I’ve heard). I wonder what happened. (The old voice I could have listened to even when I disagreed with it, but the new one is one that makes me change the radio station.)

43. America may vote for hope, or even undefined change.

    But they do demand that a “there” be there.

    And it isn’t.

44. Donald Wolberg

    Are not both the product of the equally humor-free Chicago emocrat Party political machine? I do not recall humor from the elder, late Mayor Daley or his son.
    Daley the Elder did have his occasional humorous phrases, but they were perhaps unintentional. Such as:

    “The police are not here to create disorder.The police are here to preserve disorder.”

    This gem was from the 1968 Democratic National Convention, where William Ayers was one of the rioters, if memory serves me correctly.

45. Another things Obama need to learn, and fast: POTUS is not tzar, he is not even king. Humans, society, economics are not so pliable as he believes, and little can be done to improve them.

46. “… there was an atmosphere of respect, a certain formality and dignity even amidst the banter, a deference that was standard back then but is now absent.”

    How could it be different? JFK came with an authentic military record, as an authentic American patriot and an established and influential legislator, as well as being the “first” Catholic to break that cultural barrier. Obama has provided little voluntarily, with a largely undisclosed personal record, down to and including even something as simple and basic as presenting a visibly authentic birth certificate. He began his campaign by attempting to obfuscate his youth as a muslim, as well as deception concerning his extensive adult history of associations, sympathy and alignment with apologists and advocates of communism and socialism, as well as islamists and other arch-enemies of America. Hypocricy, by definition, precludes any possibility of humor beyond “pretense”; In the aftermath of a victory based on well documented hypocricy concerning (unprecedented) campaign finance and voter registration fraud. Victory in which, solely for political opportunism, he denied and betrayed his “pastor” and mentor of twenty years, as well as other well known and established friends and associates. So, the prize was won, but there can’t be much inherently honest and respectful humor to be had for either a media that forgot that in it’s role it owed the country something akin to fiduciary duty in the form of honest and complete reporting. Nor can there be an innocent and light-hearted ease for this candidate who after all is said and done, beyond his “politics” was no more than a junior legislator with a marginal achievement and experience record beyond law school. If Obama wants to be my president, he still needs to, just as a gesture of goodwill, show the court that authentic birth certificate, and prove clearly that certain media, and his relatives in Kenya, if the story is true, were lying when they said they were at the hospital the day he was born…

47. President-Elect Obama once suggested that his supporters should ask their boss for the day off on election day so they could go vote.

    Now, various supporters of the President-Elect are calling for the day of his inaguration to be a national holiday. No word on whether this is to be a one time event or a new permanent holiday. I do not know if the President-Elect has also called for this new national holiday, but very little comes from the Obama people without approval, either explicit or implicit, from Obama himself.

    People who believe themselves to be worthy of a national holiday do not tend to be able to laugh at themselves.

48. I am sorry but you will have to give me one example of Clinton laughing at himself.He couldn’t -narcissists cannot.
    I remember watching an interview where he mispronounced something, not once but twice and I thought he would finally see the humor of his mistake and I could like him just a little bit-he couldn’t do it.It made him mad.
    Self-deprecation requires humility which requires knowing who you and and feeling O.K. with that.That is not Clinton nor will it be until the day that he can actually admit his lies and tell the truth about his Presidency.
    He didn’t even have the courage to admit he lied to us as the Prosector Ray had made part of the” no indictment” deal.He sent Kendall out to do it.Shameful coward.At least we are now rid of them both.

49. We see from the clip that Nixon’s political prospects at the time were something to be laughed at by the press. Ten years later, he gave their (yes, their) presidential candidate a shellacking. A lesson there for Sarah Palin?

50. Kennedy could stand alone on the platform, BO was backed up or held up by a lot of people in case they had to help him with a answer

51. A couple of things that might be worth mentioning because I didn’t see them addressed in the other comments

    1. JFK was a likable guy. Obama is not. I don’t think most of his supporters like him (you have to know someone to truly like them and no one really knows him) they are enthralled by him – but that is something totally different.

    2. Notice how the press back then actually had some wit? This was evidence by the question about the satires on the Kennedy family where the reporter asked “were they an annoyance or an enjoyance?” That is missing today from the MSM. This becomes very evident if you compare the anchors on Fox and Friends to those on the other morning shows. Often those on F&F are laughing at each other or themselves. This rarely happens on the other morning shows. Most liberals seem to only really find humor when it is at someone else’s expense. Even at the Alfred E. Smith dinner he only took a few shots at himself while most were aimed at McCain or others. Most of McCain’s remarks were thrown at himself and his party.

    3. I remember growing up (and it is still the case) that my family had many laughs at our own expense and the situations around us. I would think that dinner at the Obma household is a pretty dour occasion.

52. he is not even in the first day of office and they are talking about a national holiday in his name

    this is gonna be a bumpy ride

53. Alpha male, huh?

    Maybe this applies: Chesterton (or one of his characters) said that moderate strength is shown in violence, while great strength is shown in levity. (Which brings to mind the Jupiter section of Holst’s The Planets, which I find especially satisfying in the transcription by Peter Sykes.)

54. What is it about the far left that excludes humor?…. And your final answer is?

    “Fear and trembling, a sickness unto death”?

    Stolen from Soren Kierkegaard.

55. What an unfair post deriding Obama and his perceived lack of humor!!!!

    I, for one laughed when Obam told a group of zombie followers that we could cut our oil dependence in half if only we’d inflate our tires and get regular tune-ups.

    His own people laughed at that too…….well, until they realized that he was completely serious.

56. To laugh is to be able to see a few flaws in yourself, otherwise laughter is derisive and mocking. Most Messiahs see no flaws hence have no humor other than bitter irony and mockery.

57. If you had been elected president and recalled that you won an election by getting opponents’ efforts thrown out due to signature issues, that you had won two by having opponent’s divorce decrees unsealed (or the machine did it for you), you would know you haven’t actually won a real election until you got a couple of points ahead in a presidential election with the press and the economy going for you.
    Anybody remember the last scene of “The Candidate”?
    If O has the brains God gave a goose, he’s having an “oh shit” moment. If he’s not, that’s even scarier.

58. If O has the brains God gave a goose, he’s having an “oh shit” moment.

    If He starts calling the WH the “Holiday Inn”, then we’ll know.

59. I thought the whole “office of the president elect” thing was funny. I was waiting for Chef Ramsey to walk on stage, grab it, and throw it in a shreader… along with his old seals from the campaign… and do a lecture about the lame signs…

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61. Perhaps he’s been taking humor lessons from John Kerry.

    I remember reading some years back someone’s comment that he’d been at one of Hitler’s speeches and couldn’t see what the Germans saw in him. And his companion, a German, was just completely taken with Hitler. I have to believe it’s like a preference for a comedian: Letterman and Seinfeld do nothing for me, but they do for millions of others. They’re just not on my wavelength.

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