Posted by
Steve on Monday, May 11, 2009 1:56:10 PM
The yearly White House Correspondents dinner was held this past weekend. The usual suspects were in attendance. Everyone who is anyone in the news media in Washington and surrounding areas was there. There was also the usual amount of political types, capped by the President.
The lead comedy act set a new low for comedy at these events. She did have her funny moments, but really stepped in it when she started to talk about Rush Limbaugh. I thought that the comedy at this event was to poke fun at the current administration, not the past administration or the opposition. But, when she talked about Rush, she started getting personal. She accused him of being the 20th hijacker but could not make it because he was high on drugs. To a liberal, that might have been funny. At the dinner, most of the audience laughed. Some made their disapproval known with a chorus of “boos". But, she then got even worse by wishing Rush would die of kidney failure. Now, you may wish someone were dead, but it is not a joking matter and you do not say it in front of the President.
Much is being said on the talk shows about this problem with the “jokes” in the comedy act. They were not funny and were not really intended to be funny. Putting them in a comedy act gives you cover in case they turn out to be offensive. You can claim that it was just part of a joke. You could tell from how she said the remarks that she really did mean what she said. That people laughed showed how sick the audience is. You do not wish someone were dead in a joke. That is not funny, no matter who it is and no matter what the situation.
When performing in front of an audience, you should have a standard of behavior that says that you will not intentionally offend anyone. The remarks about Rush were bound to offend some people, regardless of their political affiliation. The standard of behavior should go up when performing in front of the President, not down. If you respect the office of the President of the United States, you should treat whoever holds or has held that office with respect. That means that you have a higher standard of behavior that is expected of you when you say or do something in front of the President than when you are with anyone else. She lowered her standards to the lowest level of the gutter, not a smart thing to do.
Had she said things like that against people that are on the left, I would have the same reaction. There are some things that are not funny and should not be attempted. The politics of personal destruction should not be attempted in comedy clubs. If your neighbor wants to do it in your house at a party, that is one thing. To do it in public in front of the TV is quite another. She probably feels like she really said something clever because she has everyone talking about it today. What she does not realize is that we feel sorry for her because she is not intelligent enough to realize that she did something incredibly stupid and tacky.
Dennis Prager said that he holds himself to a higher standard when he comes to the radio station. He makes sure that he dresses in nice clothes. He could wear cutoffs and a T-shirt, but he does not do it. He feels it is part of his integrity to try to live to a higher standard when performing. I tend to do much the same thing. When I go to work, I could wear shorts and a T-shirt because I work in the lab and with an autoclave. Those are dusty, dirty and hot jobs. I wear nice pants and a nice shirt so that I look professional at all times. I feel that it helps me maintain a higher standard of behavior. It also makes the lab look like a better place to work if we dress nicely. That is the kind of thing I am talking about. The same idea holds when using speech.