Laughing instead of crying
: Election humor is exploding:
: Go see Frank Lesser’s Lie Girls now! You can call them and they’ll tell you what you want to hear….
“The economy is getting bigger and bigger…. It’s soooo big!”
“We’re the coalition of the willing!”
This from the man who brought you Pleasure Boat Captains for Truth.
: When I met the leaders of Communists for Kerry the other night, I asked them whether they had challenged Billionnaires for Bush to a rumble — depending on your age, imagine West Side Story or Gangs of New York with a laughtrack. So now the commies are challenging the buckboys in email from Ivan Lenin:
Here’s the deal. After Nov.2, we will probably be out of business, and you probably hope that the opposite will happen. We challenge you to a battle re-enactment. Your Big Money vs our Revolutionary Rage. Your classy wit against our leftist nonsense. Your snobbish pussiness against our relentless propaganda.
OK, maybe ya hadda be there.
: I spoke to yet another person yesterday about the popularity and success of Jon Stewart in this selection season, trying to unlock the mystery of it all and I said it’s really quite simple:
Politics is funny and news media doesn’t admit it from its high, institutional perch. At a human level, it is hilarious. That is precisely what gives Stewart more credibility: He, like we, knows just how absurd this crap is.
: Now this isn’t exactly a punchline, but note, too, how even NBC News is trying to make the election if not funny, at least fun.
I stopped by their Democracy Plaza — aka Rockefeller Plaza — yesterday after the cohost of Capital Report said he was there while I was taping my segment a few blocks away. There are all kinds of exhibits — a first-edition printing of the Declaration of Independence, which is, truly, goose-bump material; and activities (walk through a replica of Air Force One); and eye candy (huge flashing screens — Times Square for populism).
In the ice of Rock Center, they have painted a map of the United State, which you see here (simply, through my Treo). On election night, they will transform those states red and blue as the election is called. (Can you erase ice?)
