4 Responses

1. a says:

   August 23, 2008 at 7:08 am

   Yeah, and McCain’s “gorilla rape” jokes are a-list material.

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2. Timmy Mac says:

   August 23, 2008 at 10:56 am

   If you’re going vote for funny, you have to go with either Kucinich or Al Sharpton. Otherwise, assume your president is a hack and move on.

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3. Cockistan says:

   August 27, 2008 at 3:39 pm

   I feel the need to point out that just after he made the 7-11 comment, the very next thing Biden said was “I’m not joking”.I don’t know if that makes the statement a little scarier, but regardless I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. He obviously didn’t want anyone to be under the foolish impression that he was making a joke.Also, yes, McCain’s sense of humor is pretty sick (gorilla rape, janet reno is chelea’s father, etc). Let’s not get caught up in how unfunny Biden is, because he’s not trying to be funny. McCain IS, and people keep saying how funny and charming he is, when so far this election cycle, he has been neither.Help us out, Shecky. Do a hitpiece on McCain’s “sense of humor”, because the rest of the media is too busy gushing over him as if he were the country’s only POW.

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4. Brian McKim & Traci Skene says:

   August 27, 2008 at 4:03 pm

   “Hit piece?”We don’t do hit pieces.As for McCain’s sense of humor– he seems pretty natural. Are the jokes appropriate for a national politician? Not in this day and age.Does he manage to deliver his one- and two-liners with an effective snort and/or sneer? Most definitely.Is it calculated? Sometimes. More often than not, though, it seems to indicate that he probably is a ball-buster off-camera and away from the podium. In other words, he seems comfortable doing the “use humor to put your audience at ease” thing. So often the main problem with the pols is that they fully realize the importance of humor in a presentation/in a candidate, but they are unable to make it look… “organic.”McCain’s “performance” on Leno the other night was a B+. He got a bit excited on one or two occasions and delivered a line that was obviously a joke. (Of course, we all know they are… the trick is to get the audience to suspend their comedy disbelief, if you will.)As for Biden “not trying to be funny,” wherever did you dream that up? Biden reads from the same handbook that all politicians do. He knows full well– after two runs for the White House– that a sense of humor (or the appearance of one) is, with very rare exceptions, absolutely essential to get elected.When Biden said, “I’m not joking,” it made an uncomfortable situation confusing as well. By tagging his clumsy gag with that disclaimer, he established that he has no sense for the rules of comedy. To respond to your speculation: It does indeed make the statement “a little scarier.” But it also demonstrates that Biden thought that the harmful effects of a failed joke can be negated by claiming that it was not an attempt at a joke. Which makes the original statement merely insulting! (In so doing, he may have also demonstrated a fundamental misunderstanding of human nature in general!)So far, what passes for Obama’s “sense of humor” is a mild rhetorical style rather than actual attempts at jokes or humor. He drops his g’s, effects a kind of a lilt in his voice (a swagger, perhaps) and gives the audience other verbal and subtle audio/visual cues that what he is about to say is sarcasm. The audience, for the most part, picks up on it and dutifully “laughs,” but the reactions can’t be mistaken for that release we get from a real laugh.He is trying, though.

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