On more than one occasion news has been made by comedians at the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner. In past years, Don Imus and Stephen Colbert drew attention for the mean-spirited nature of some of their jokes. This year’s most controversial moment came from Wanda Sykes’ comment that Rush Limbaugh was the 20th September 11 hijacker and her hope that his kidneys would fail.
I watched some of the White House Correspondents' Dinner on C-Span this weekend, but what I found most interesting was something that was broadcast by C-Span to fill the time when the guests were eating. The event was a panel discussion, sponsored by the Writers’ Guild of America, East, which had taken place at the Newseum. The panel consisted of late night comedy writers and the subject they addressed was the relationship between news and comedy.
“So what does comedy tell us about the truth that the news can't? That's the question we're taking a stab at answering," said WGAE President Michael Winship.
During the panel discussion Bill Scheft, a writer for the David Letterman show for 18 years, talked about a segment on the show that I remembered well. Newsbusters blog posted a transcript of Scheft’s comments:
“The moment that I am most proud of having been on the show is when we had John McCain on after, you know, he, you know, bolted on us to go save the economy. When he came back to the show, and he was, at the time he was out on the campaign trail beating the Bill Ayers drone. And I gave Dave a note before we went on about McCain's relationship to Gordon Liddy. And, in the middle of the interview, McCain starts talking about Obama palling around with terrorists and Bill Ayers.”
Scheft continued, “And I stand under the spiral staircase on stage and I was just standing there going: ‘Liddy, Liddy, say Liddy, please say Liddy, please say Liddy.’ And Dave said, ‘Well don't you have a relationship with G. Gordon Liddy?’ And you just saw, you know, whatever chip was left in McCain's head just kind of, phhh, and ‘well I, you know, I know him.’ ‘Well, didn't you go to a fundraiser, didn't you attend a fundraiser at his house?’ ‘Well I.’ ‘We'll be right back.’ Which is the great thing that a host can do, you know, ‘we'll be right back.’...I'm more proud of that than any single joke that I've written.”
That episode of the Letterman show was highly anticipated because McCain’s last minute cancellation of his earlier appearance on the show had resulted in an angry tirade from Letterman. Viewers wanted to see if McCain and his good buddy David Letterman would kiss and make up.
When I heard Scheft’s statement I was surprised because I remembered the “Ayers-Libby” exchange well and thought it was the dumbest comparison I had ever heard. Watching that segment of the Letterman show I wondered why McCain didn't come straight back at him and explain to Letterman that Ayers was a domestic terrorist. Ayers advocated bombing public buildings. Liddy organized a failed break in of the Democratic National Committee and spent over four years in prison paying for it. I was surprised to learn that what I thought was a ridiculous and uninformed comparison was something David Letterman’s writer of 18 years was more proud of than any single joke he had ever written.
He didn’t say why that made him more proud than any joke he had written, but he believed the Liddy line destroyed McCain. Based on other comments made during the panel, his political leanings were no secret.
Questions were taken from the audience of over 300 “political leaders and opinion makers.” One audience member quoted a comment from Jon Stewart about not making jokes about Barack Obama because he’s just not funny. She said “Well, he is pretty funny,” then asked if the panelists didn’t make more jokes about him because he's black or “is it because he is a Democrat and we're all so in love with the fact there's a Democrat in the office?”
Continued... |