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| Obama on Colbert and Ferguson: it's all pretty sad because it's true (even if he's funny) | |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| Barack Obama went on Stephen Colbert’s show Tuesday night, and whether that’s a good thing depends on who you are. If you don’t particularly like Obama, it was easy to scream at the television about the president of the United States fiddling with late-night talk-show punchlines – or gloating – while America burns. If you do like him, the bits inspired a false kinship: “He’s funny, just like me!” | Barack Obama went on Stephen Colbert’s show Tuesday night, and whether that’s a good thing depends on who you are. If you don’t particularly like Obama, it was easy to scream at the television about the president of the United States fiddling with late-night talk-show punchlines – or gloating – while America burns. If you do like him, the bits inspired a false kinship: “He’s funny, just like me!” |
| Obama telling jokes is the liberal equivalent of Bush clearing brush at his ranch: you could share a beer with him while doing that. | Obama telling jokes is the liberal equivalent of Bush clearing brush at his ranch: you could share a beer with him while doing that. |
| Ordinarily, reading too much into satirical punchlines (and the ones on the Colbert Report were good) indicates that you probably didn’t get them, but the presidential goofing takes on a different cast when just hours before, the president appears on BET to talk about Ferguson, Mike Brown and Eric Garner. Taken together, the appearances sound like a bitter regret falling into a bitter laugh, and both falling into a fadeout, because there’s nothing else to do. | Ordinarily, reading too much into satirical punchlines (and the ones on the Colbert Report were good) indicates that you probably didn’t get them, but the presidential goofing takes on a different cast when just hours before, the president appears on BET to talk about Ferguson, Mike Brown and Eric Garner. Taken together, the appearances sound like a bitter regret falling into a bitter laugh, and both falling into a fadeout, because there’s nothing else to do. |
| Obama’s BET interview was thoughtful and sad in the same way that all Obama conversations about race are. He said some beautiful and welcome things. Despite deploring violence in protests, he came as close as possible to admitting that popular unrest has value when untidy: “A country’s conscience sometimes has to be triggered by some inconvenience.” | Obama’s BET interview was thoughtful and sad in the same way that all Obama conversations about race are. He said some beautiful and welcome things. Despite deploring violence in protests, he came as close as possible to admitting that popular unrest has value when untidy: “A country’s conscience sometimes has to be triggered by some inconvenience.” |
| He spoke personally and evocatively about the future and what is yet undone. “I don’t want [my daughters] to be objects of fear because of misguided attitudes,” Obama said. “Part of what I think is so heartbreaking and frustrating for a lot of folks when they watch [police profiling of minorities] is the recognition that simply by virtue of color, you’ve got less margin for error.” | He spoke personally and evocatively about the future and what is yet undone. “I don’t want [my daughters] to be objects of fear because of misguided attitudes,” Obama said. “Part of what I think is so heartbreaking and frustrating for a lot of folks when they watch [police profiling of minorities] is the recognition that simply by virtue of color, you’ve got less margin for error.” |
| What was unsaid was what was unsaid – and what is always unsaid now. As Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote at the Atlantic, Obama is an earnest moderate, a sincere believer in the process of the American experiment to eventually transcend race. His belief has surely intensified just by dint of the remarkable ascent of his own life: you can’t help but reaffirm your faith that it can happen when you are proof that, at least once and at least in part, it has. | What was unsaid was what was unsaid – and what is always unsaid now. As Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote at the Atlantic, Obama is an earnest moderate, a sincere believer in the process of the American experiment to eventually transcend race. His belief has surely intensified just by dint of the remarkable ascent of his own life: you can’t help but reaffirm your faith that it can happen when you are proof that, at least once and at least in part, it has. |
| But Obama spoke reservedly again, because he has been chastened by the fact that he is at once exceptional and always taken exception to. Coates noted that, because of backlash, Obama would no longer call a cop “stupid” for trying to arrest Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates for attempting to “break in” to his own house. And he knows the downside of saying things like, “If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon.” For every black conscience that feels those words like a balm, there is a white mind that synonymizes Barack Obama and Trayvon Martin both forward and back. If Obama is like Trayvon, then he’s a “thug” in the wrong neighborhood who threatens a “citizen” – all citizens. If Trayvon is like Obama, then he must be just as ready to usurp your property as Obama was to abscond with America’s wealth and the Constitution. For them, the likeness between the two is a confirmation of whatever crimes they want to see. | But Obama spoke reservedly again, because he has been chastened by the fact that he is at once exceptional and always taken exception to. Coates noted that, because of backlash, Obama would no longer call a cop “stupid” for trying to arrest Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates for attempting to “break in” to his own house. And he knows the downside of saying things like, “If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon.” For every black conscience that feels those words like a balm, there is a white mind that synonymizes Barack Obama and Trayvon Martin both forward and back. If Obama is like Trayvon, then he’s a “thug” in the wrong neighborhood who threatens a “citizen” – all citizens. If Trayvon is like Obama, then he must be just as ready to usurp your property as Obama was to abscond with America’s wealth and the Constitution. For them, the likeness between the two is a confirmation of whatever crimes they want to see. |
| Obama’s closer on BET was not surprising: | Obama’s closer on BET was not surprising: |
| This is not only personal for me because of who I am. ... But as president ... America works when everybody feels as if they are being treated fairly and that they’ve got a fair shot. And whenever we are unified in trying to uphold our ideals, then this country can’t be stopped. | This is not only personal for me because of who I am. ... But as president ... America works when everybody feels as if they are being treated fairly and that they’ve got a fair shot. And whenever we are unified in trying to uphold our ideals, then this country can’t be stopped. |
| Even if Obama’s Comedy Central appearance might have been taped earlier, the real conclusion felt like it came on the Colbert Report, where Obama delivered his version of “The Word” (retitled “The Decree”), the satire of Bill O’Reilly’s talking-points rundown. Later, during the interview, he even pointedly called Colbert “Bill”. | Even if Obama’s Comedy Central appearance might have been taped earlier, the real conclusion felt like it came on the Colbert Report, where Obama delivered his version of “The Word” (retitled “The Decree”), the satire of Bill O’Reilly’s talking-points rundown. Later, during the interview, he even pointedly called Colbert “Bill”. |
| Zing. | Zing. |
| The dark heart of the Colbert Report has always been a twin acknowledgement. One, that Bill O’Reilly is emblematic, relevant, a constant driver of discussion and, essentially, forever. You don’t base a TV series on satirizing a phenomenon if you think it will die. Two, while one can quote Hofstadter and The Paranoid Style in American Politics and find O’Reilly’s antecedents in the Know-Nothings and even barely-post-ratification ethnic loathing in New York City, something about the holistic parody of his tactics, graphics and 21st-century jerk vibe admits a kind of surrender. | The dark heart of the Colbert Report has always been a twin acknowledgement. One, that Bill O’Reilly is emblematic, relevant, a constant driver of discussion and, essentially, forever. You don’t base a TV series on satirizing a phenomenon if you think it will die. Two, while one can quote Hofstadter and The Paranoid Style in American Politics and find O’Reilly’s antecedents in the Know-Nothings and even barely-post-ratification ethnic loathing in New York City, something about the holistic parody of his tactics, graphics and 21st-century jerk vibe admits a kind of surrender. |
| Bill O’Reilly is the way things are now. Since it knows no correction, our only alternative is to laugh. | Bill O’Reilly is the way things are now. Since it knows no correction, our only alternative is to laugh. |
| This has always been the tricky business of satire: the more completely authentic and damning it is, the more it admits to its target’s victory – maybe even its permanency. In the realm of books and movies, that admission hurts less, if only because of the singular iteration of those works. At 10 seasons and nearly 1,500 episodes of the Colbert Report, the admission feels like acceptance. The show is shutting down because Stephen Colbert is replacing David Letterman, but it might as well close up shop because nobody wants to face that this nightmare is unending. | This has always been the tricky business of satire: the more completely authentic and damning it is, the more it admits to its target’s victory – maybe even its permanency. In the realm of books and movies, that admission hurts less, if only because of the singular iteration of those works. At 10 seasons and nearly 1,500 episodes of the Colbert Report, the admission feels like acceptance. The show is shutting down because Stephen Colbert is replacing David Letterman, but it might as well close up shop because nobody wants to face that this nightmare is unending. |
| This is still the problem with reading too much into a punchline. Obama was funny – he had good tone and expressions, and he weighed the beats very well – and so was Colbert. And Lord knows that presidents deserve a moment to enjoy where they are, for the brief chuckle amidst the misery. Besides, he’s a lame duck. This is happening because why not, and because it can, so OK. | This is still the problem with reading too much into a punchline. Obama was funny – he had good tone and expressions, and he weighed the beats very well – and so was Colbert. And Lord knows that presidents deserve a moment to enjoy where they are, for the brief chuckle amidst the misery. Besides, he’s a lame duck. This is happening because why not, and because it can, so OK. |
| At the same time, as much as it might feel like a sick burn to see the most powerful man on the planet “accidentally” call a parodic buffoon the name of his target, it’s still a depressing acquiescence to an interminable status quo. This is the way things are, and even the man putatively in charge must play that for a gag. Even Obama’s earnest comments seemed resigned: | At the same time, as much as it might feel like a sick burn to see the most powerful man on the planet “accidentally” call a parodic buffoon the name of his target, it’s still a depressing acquiescence to an interminable status quo. This is the way things are, and even the man putatively in charge must play that for a gag. Even Obama’s earnest comments seemed resigned: |
| My preference would be to get a whole lot more done through Congress. The more we can get the Congress to work the way it’s supposed to, the less these problems come up. | My preference would be to get a whole lot more done through Congress. The more we can get the Congress to work the way it’s supposed to, the less these problems come up. |
| It wasn’t a laugh line, but it is. | It wasn’t a laugh line, but it is. |
| Obama on BET and Obama on Colbert felt like two steps on the same path. There are people out in Ferguson, on the streets of New York City, in Berkeley, in black communities around the country, who know the process doesn’t work. The protesters are out there because the process failed. Obama gives recognition, but he recognizes that anything angrier or more directed only imperils the sympathy of the cause with a white America prone to interpret any of the actions as illegitimate. Instead, he offers the people out in the streets of Ferguson and New York and Berkeley the process. | Obama on BET and Obama on Colbert felt like two steps on the same path. There are people out in Ferguson, on the streets of New York City, in Berkeley, in black communities around the country, who know the process doesn’t work. The protesters are out there because the process failed. Obama gives recognition, but he recognizes that anything angrier or more directed only imperils the sympathy of the cause with a white America prone to interpret any of the actions as illegitimate. Instead, he offers the people out in the streets of Ferguson and New York and Berkeley the process. |
| Obama offered it again on Colbert, to people who likely don’t need to be on the streets, drawing an uncomfortable comparison between audiences whose daily travails remain distinct, but for whom the political solution is identical. They are a people who can laugh at a program whose very structure acknowledges, by its endless reiteration, an awful and mordant surrender. They are a TV audience, and they are unafraid. | Obama offered it again on Colbert, to people who likely don’t need to be on the streets, drawing an uncomfortable comparison between audiences whose daily travails remain distinct, but for whom the political solution is identical. They are a people who can laugh at a program whose very structure acknowledges, by its endless reiteration, an awful and mordant surrender. They are a TV audience, and they are unafraid. |
| It was funny. But that’s the trouble with satire. Sometimes it isn’t. | It was funny. But that’s the trouble with satire. Sometimes it isn’t. |
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