[photo Keith Olbermann]NYDN columnist Mike Lupica: Here is what David Feherty, a golf guy who poses no threat to the memory of Lenny Bruce, wrote in a Dallas magazine recently:
"If you gave any U.S. soldier a gun with two bullets in it, and he found himself in an elevator with Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Osama Bin Laden, there's a good chance that Nancy Pelosi would get shot twice, and Harry Reid and Bin Laden would be strangled to death."
Not funny. An old joke, tastelessly retold. Feherty of CBS - who once wrote a book called "Somewhere in Ireland a Village is Missing an Idiot" - is drawing fire because of it. But you have to wonder how a similar joke might have played at the White House Correspondents' dinner on Saturday night, as long as it was about a Republican.
Because here are a couple of jokes Wanda Sykes wrote and then delivered to that crowd: "You know, you might want to look into this, [President Obama], because I think maybe Rush Limbaugh was the 20th hijacker, but he was just so strung out on OxyContin he missed his flight. ...
"Rush Limbaugh hopes the country fails? I hope his kidneys fail, how 'bout that?"
Somehow Ms. Sykes got laughs with this material, and draws no fire. It is all supposed to be about the setting, or so we are told. President Obama was there, the dinner is always the Washington version of a Friars Club Roast, just without the Sopranos language.
So Sykes, a comedian, gets a pass because of where she was, and whom she was talking about. And maybe who she is. David Feherty, who fancies himself a bit of a comic himself, doesn't, at least not so far. As always, the rules on all this change from day to day like baseball's strike zone.
...But what if Limbaugh, white talk show host, goes on the air and says that Sykes, black comedian, is about half-a-terrorist and that, oh by the way, he hopes she dies? Is he allowed to say he's just an entertainer, and tell everybody to lighten up?
Feherty? He has been condemned by representatives from Pelosi and Reid and even the PGA Tour. CBS issued a statement that said, "Feherty's column for a Dallas magazine is an unacceptable attempt at humor and is not in any way condoned." Read more: "David Feherty shouldn't get pass for tasteless joke - but neither should Wanda Sykes." More...
Obama laughed his ass off at Wanda's Limbaugh jokes. There's the smoking gun video. WH press sec Robert Gibbs ignored the elephant in the room at today's presser. Wha'happened between Saturday and Monday? Wanda's Limbaugh skewer was viewed as a verboten 9/11 joke:
As one who was on hand when Don Imus was the guest court jester (and who could see Bill Clinton's face turn a glowing red by which you could have ead a newspaper on a moonless night), I must say that this annual incest-fest has gotten way outta hand. The only good thing now is that journalists are so star-struck by Hollywood types that they don't suck up as much to those they ostensibly cover. Sykes apparently thought she was playing a very large comedy club where all the patrons wear tuxes. She's very funny, but she has all the political acumen of an earthworm and the decorum of an alley cat. You have to remember that the entertainment for these correspondents' dinners goes in swings. Impressionist Rich Little was panned as too banal and out of touch, so Stephen Colbert and Wanda Sykes followed. Next year, maybe it'll be Carrot Top.
ReplyDeleteWell said.
ReplyDeleteYeah, Carrot Top and all his props!
And what was this declasse fisting by the First Lady?
Ugh... I refused to watch the event... and Wanda's gay, not that it matters...
I like Wanda but not in that room with her ill-chosen zooms...
Colbert bombed when he did the deed. Jon Stewart next year?
Bill Maher?
This event needs to die a quick death...
They can have it. Just don't tape it or broadcast it. It's like watching a circle jerk that has no end.
ReplyDeleteBill Maher has already done it, to so-so reviews as I recall. I talked with Bill. That is one short son-of-a-bitch.
ReplyDeleteJimbo,
ReplyDeleteSo he's as big an a hole as he seems to be....
Anon
So I guess we will never go back to the days of clean comedy like that of Bob Hope. Now every comedian(e) feels a need to go on stage, bend over and show the audience how big an ass hole they are. I to recall the Imus fling a few years ago when he had to grovel for a week because he pokes fun of the penis in chief. Guess Wicked Witch Wanda will be give a ticker tape parade parade down Hollywood and Vine.
ReplyDeleteOh yes do maintain that double standard. Only the selected ones may make off color tasteless jokes about tragedy.
Most comedy has some root in truth, that is what makes the elevator joke a roaring hoot!
ReplyDeleteBill's done it? Where was I?
ReplyDeleteSubmaster: What root in truth is there to Rush as the 20th hijacker, I ask you...
I recall when Rich Little hosted the thing. God, he was painful to watch...
I'm voting for Sarah Silverman next year...
No truth in Rush comment, truth in elevator joke. Seeing I'm in the military, and if I was in that elevator, there would be a similiar outcome.
ReplyDeleteMaher was a correspondents' dinner entertainment at least a dozen years ago. It was the other one, Radio-TV correspondents, as I recall. You can partially date it by one of the funniest lines I've ever heard at one of these. That was back when the house majority leader, on the floor of the house, referred to "Barney Fag, er Frank". At the dinner, looking directly at the Texas congressman, Maher said, "I don't think a guy named Dick Armey oughtta be makin' fag jokes".
ReplyDeleteOh, yeah, I remember the Barney Fag comment and the ensuing furor over Dick Armey.
ReplyDeleteDon't remember Maher's zinger. You're right, Jim. It is hilarious!