The Blog Larry Gelbart: One From the Spleen The Huffington Post

Since it’s easier to link to other people’s writing than to come up with an entirely original piece of writing, I will let Larry Gelbart express my feeling about presidential jokes:

He has the flexibility of an I-beam combined with the IQ of a houseplant, and I am finding it increasingly difficult to keep shaking my tiny little fist, employing whatever is left of my wits and my wit to point out that not only is the emperor naked, but that his new clothes come with two pair of pants.

…

Writing jokes about him has become far too easy. This messianic miscreant is much too convenient a straight line — a line that is surely leading him — a whole lot of dutifully blogging stragglers in tow — even further into a hell which we all stood by and watched him create, while we continued to fire our funny bullets at him.

I suppose I should note, for my part, that “funny bullets” is purely metaphorical.

From a recent post by Gina Cobb:

What we have here — and we will miss it when it is gone — is a president whose kindness is not rationed out in proportion to the decency of his rivals. In his prepared speeches, he makes a conscious choice to speak as kindly of his rivals as is humanly possible. His graciousness is more noticeable when the vitriol from his rivals reaches its apex — or at a time when his approval rating seems to be in free fall. What we have here is a decent man who takes the dignity and responsibility of the presidency seriously.

Hmmm, let’s review…

October 30, 2006:

President Bush said terrorists will win if Democrats win and impose their policies on Iraq, as he and Vice President Cheney escalated their rhetoric Monday in an effort to turn out Republican voters in next week’s midterm elections.

From Tucker Carlson in 1999:

In the week before [Karla Faye Tucker’s] execution, Bush says, Bianca Jagger and a number of other protesters came to Austin to demand clemency for Tucker. “Did you meet with any of them?” I ask.
Bush whips around and stares at me. “No, I didn’t meet with any of them,” he snaps, as though I’ve just asked the dumbest, most offensive question ever posed. “I didn’t meet with Larry King either when he came down for it. I watched his interview with [Tucker], though. He asked her real difficult questions, like ‘What would you say to Governor Bush?’ “
“What was her answer?” I wonder.
“Please,” Bush whimpers, his lips pursed in mock desperation, “don’t kill me.”

Now, of course, Karla Faye Tucker was not a “rival” as described in the original quote above. Nevertheless, this is a president who can no longer express a single concept without an infuriating smirk. Despite one moment that might have once been described as “presidential,” this president probably wouldn’t know gravitas if it came up and bit him somewhere sensitive.

I suppose someone who desperately wants to see decency in the man can find examples to prove their point, just as I can find examples to prove the opposite. But can anyone find a recent example of something decent he has done? Something meaningful, so the Ashley Faulkner incident does not count. Sure, it was a nice thing to do, but I am more interested in what he has done to make things right.

I

do

not

give

a

crap

what

President

Bush

says

any

more.