Whither Political Irony?

Posted: July 15th, 2008 | Filed under: Culture, Personalities, Politics, Ruminations | No Comments »

My reaction to the immediately infamous New Yorker magazine cover — hubby and wife Obama caricatured as their most ardent enemies would portray them — was immediate and visceral. I stopped what I was doing, scurried to my computer and shot off an email to the editors of the weekly ‘zine I adore and receive by subscription.

“Be ashamed,” I wrote. “Be very, very ashamed.”

Given the contemporary political clime, my reaction hasn’t withered upon deeper reflection. I have ingested the invective of the liberal media accusing left-of-center types such as myself as having lost our sense of humor. I have pondered the conundrum that is a general lack of satire by the punditocracy aimed at the presumptive Republican and Democratic presidential candidates.

I’ve re-examined my own reaction. I’ve often said that my favorite bit of topical satire was a cover of National Lampoon in the 70’s during the Biafran famine. It depicted a sickeningly thin starving child as if he/she were a chocolate Easter bunny with a bite out of the shoulder.

What has been wrought in the years between these two covers that an irreverent sort such as myself would have turned 180 degrees?

Whither irony?

So contentious has political discourse become, so ruptured is the possibility these days of measured philosophical engagement that any sense of humor has been set aside. The lines are too strictly drawn.

For liberals, the thought of another administration that would further propagate the war, further bow before Big Oil, further narrow entitlement to any but the richest of the rich is unfathomable. For conservatives, the possibility of “socialized medicine,” the probability of having to pay a fairer share of taxes, the thought that those fellows replacing their roofs in 100 degree heat might actually be given citizenship leaves them apoplectic.

Thus every political nanosecond is checked for exactitude against a digital watch, every sentence parsed, every photo checked for evidence of photoshopping. There is little inclination to laugh at the foibles of the foe, less to sit back and laugh at the tomfoolery of it all, none for self-deprecating introspection.

Barack Obama is black. John McCain is a former POW. Those realities make satire all the more difficult. If not extinct, it is certainly in a state of advance dormancy.

Blame it on Rush.

Blame it on Olberman.

Blame it on Karl Rove.

Blame it on the lawn service guy here in Louisville who has big signs on the side of his work vehicle depicting Obama as bin Laden and reading “The Real Uncle Tom.”

Blame me.

Perhaps we’re all to blame for having pushed vitriol to the outer limits, leaving no room for a legit guffaw at the frailty of the political nay human condition.

What I know is that the New Yorker cover at which I would have certainly grinned, perhaps laughed out loud years ago, made me cringe. I’m not reneging on my reaction.

But I’m ashamed. Very very ashamed. At myself. For our democratic process and the humorless shell it’s become.

Is Stephen Colbert the first cultural savior of the millennium?

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