I ADMIT that I have found some of what Stephen Colbert has done on his late night show very funny, especially the Stormy Watch segments and his imitation of Trump I's short term communications director, Anthony Scaramucci. But I can't forgive him his "old Joe Biden" shtick in which he joined in the media sandbagging of Biden on his age. If it hadn't helped bring about Trump II, I may never have brought it up but it didn't help. I long ago figured out that being a comedian usually meant you'd say anything to get the next laugh and it's one of the reasons I don't find professional comedians to generally be worth listening to, anymore.
Getting flack for me making that comment reminded me of something Barney Frank said almost eleven years ago.
Q: If the press were so influential, wouldn’t Paul Tsongas have been elected president in 1992?
A: The press is very different today. It’s a major contributing factor to pro-right-wing, anti-government feeling. Because even the liberal press is anti-government. Ever watched Jon Stewart say anything good about government?
Q: He’s part of the problem?
A: Him and others. The effect is to tell people it doesn’t make any difference who they vote for. I differentiate Bill Maher from Jon Stewart. Maher’s very funny, but also has good and bad guys on the show. You say, “Oh, I agree more with this side than that side.” You come away from Stewart and especially [Stephen] Colbert, and say, “Oh, they’re all assholes.”
The only part of that I'd disagree with is what he said about Maher late in 2014, I have never once in my life found Bill Maher to be funny or smart or anything but a total asshole. I will note that Jon Stewart has been playing a far different character this past year on his comeback to his old network, not unlike the one Gavin Newsome has taken in his bizarrely Obama-like desire to win friends among the Republican-fascists when if there's one thing we know, that'll never work. I don't know if Stephen Colbert will try a similar tack after he leaves CBS but I now wonder if like so many a show-biz liberal if he's just playing another role he doesn't really have a firm commitment to.
If I had the time I could go over a list of alleged comedy liberals and other show-biz figures of the past who turned into right-wing assholes, like Mort Sahl did in a really big way. I think Frank's point, though, extends to any of them who promoted a cynical view of life, in general, such as one of the most over-rated of them of all, George Carlin. In that I think we can see a good part of the difference between liberalism that is merely a form of libertarianism and the far less common, now, liberalism that is an expression of religious morality, especially the Golden Rule but, in its most extreme forms, the rest of the program of Christian morality, extreme generosity to the least among us, acting out of equality as a religious moral requirement, even loving our enemies and praying for those who persecute us and even refusing revenge when being the victims of violence.
Of course a lot of the most ideal form of that is generally unworkable in the context of politics and the governance of a community or a country - those who do violence have to be stopped - but it then has to take the form of humane treatment of prisoners. Ironically, enough, some of the greatest fuel for the engine of cynicism is the government, especially in the form of the courts and prosecutors doing exactly that when dealing with the richest, whitest, malest of violent criminals and crooks - Trump has been among the foremost beneficiaries of the secular-legal adoption of that unworkable ideal on behalf of the richest and most powerful of criminals. And that has fed liberal cynicism which is then wasted on the impotence of comedy which has notably not kept any despot from power to my knowledge. Was there anyone who disproves that more decisively than that focus of oceans of jokes and comedy gags, Trump?
I think Barney Frank was right about that, I think the unwillingness of comedians working in show biz or the networks to finally, firmly and unceasingly take the side of egalitarian democracy over the powerful, the rich, the white, the male, the privileged and to not play the evenhandedness game - Colbert announced on Biden's win that he would treat him like he treated Trump, I heard him say that as a gag to his roaring audience approval on his show - that most basic aspect of a financially successful career in show biz, getting paid the big bucks, means that they really aren't worth much. They might do a fundraiser here and there but they aren't worth much unless they're ready to take a hit for the truth, the values of egalitarian democracy. I wonder what Frank would say about Maher now.
Keith Olbermann's hostility to Colbert and his take on what he thinks is the real reason he was canceled and the way that CBS chose to do it is extremely interesting. He compares it to the real reason MSNBC cancelled that other dubious liberal hero Phil Donohue, which he attributed to the high cost of his show format as compared to the money it made for the network and the rapid diminution of the once large late-night TV audience. I will admit that the clip he plays of himself with Carlin annoyed me as Carlin always did annoy me. There's no accounting for different taste in comedy and I can respectfully disagree on that without losing respect for someone. Unlike some of my trolls, I'm not 12.
Retort to the eternal tween, the perpetually pubescent.
Actually, I was 12 when I was 9 but then I got over it.
