Obama Laffs

Acknowledging recent complaints that he's just too hard to satirize, Barack Obama has offered up a list of jokes about Barack Obama.

At first I thought, wow, making a list of self-deprecating jokes, that's actually a pretty hip, likable ploy.

But upon actually looking at them, the sad realization immediately hits: these aren't really jokes, just campaign talking points shoehorned in the most awkward way possible.

But on the other hand, while these fail as straightforward late-night jokes, they turn out to be hilariously dark, surreal nuggets of anticomedy. For instance:

A traveling salesman knocks on the door of a farmhouse, and much to his surprise, Barack Obama answers the door. The salesman says, "I was expecting the farmer's daughter." Barack Obama replies, "She's not here. The farm was foreclosed on because of subprime loans that are making a mockery of the American Dream."

It's as if he's ridiculing the very point of cheesy late night comedy. In a way, Obama's jokes end up as a higher, more perfect form of the same type of jokes JD and I have made in the past:

What happens when you dip the gingerbread man in milk?
I don’t know- why don’t you ask wrongfully accused prisoners of Guantanamo?

It feels weirdly in-sync with the rest of the Obama myth that, even in joke form, what he's offering simultaneously looks sweetly lame and smartly rebellious.

Presidential Musical Tastes

A recent story reveals Obama's iPod playlist, and aside from a few missteps (Sheryl Crow?), it's pretty badass: Bob Dylan, Jay-Z, Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Wonder, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, Howlin' Wolf and Yo-Yo Ma made the cut. Fucking cool.

But how does that compare to McCain? It does not. Just look at his attempts to find a campaign song: For a while he tried to use John Cougar Mellencamp songs at his rallies, but John, a boring has-been who could use the exposure, asked him to stop. Fair enough; McCain says that "what little he had" in cultural tastes came to a halt when he crashed his plane in Vietnam, meaning his favorite music is from the 50's and early '60's, before some of Obama's favorites were even born.

So McCain went with "Johnny B. Goode", but then Chuck Berry turned out not only to still be alive, but to be a big Obama supporter as well. Turns out his memories of McCain's favorite musical era mostly involve fighting virulent institutional racism.

McCain then made the logical next step and went with ABBA, an effort to appeal to women that only revealed his terrible opinion of their taste. But apparently he couldn't afford the rights to the song, and he also realized he was angering the Swedes (really).

It gets to the point where this doesn't even seem like a fair fight anymore. It's like a Student Body President vote between the coolest kid in school and a disoriented old man who works in the cafeteria.