Green: Politicians should make policy, not jokes

Politicians can’t be funny. It’s kind of like Gollum trying to be Smeagol — it’s too… Politicians can’t be funny. It’s kind of like Gollum trying to be Smeagol — it’s too late. You are a soulless, pandering machine now, about 25 percent human being and 75 percent hair spray, whitening strips and various nondescript Brooks Brothers power suits.

It’s likely that some politicians had a sense of humor in their past but lost it in the treacherous climb to power, à la Anakin Skywalker losing his hand and becoming Darth Vader. Others I seriously doubt ever quite had a handle of what makes a good wisecrack.

Joe Biden — bless him — is a horrible comedian, but he loves to tell jokes! Biden makes what I like to call “grandpa jokes” — that is, jokes that are meant to seem hip and “with it,” but are just really, really awkward for everyone involved.

Last March, Biden was asked to give a “comic performance” at the 2010 Radio & Television Correspondents’ Dinner, and while his jokes were on point, there was this weird moms-who-shop-at-Abercrombie quality to them, like when he told Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown he had the difficult task of replacing “the sexiest man in the Senate.” A little weird, a little awkward, very grandpa-esque. And if I were Scott Brown, I think I would have felt more than a little creeped out.

Owing to the fact that we know many politicians lack a sense of humor, there are also those strange times when we aren’t exactly sure if a politician is joking or just being inappropriate and eccentric. This occurred, for example, when “Real Time with Bill Maher” showed a clip of Delaware senatorial candidate Christine O’Donnell saying one of her first dates was with a witch at a satanic altar.

According to MSNBC, “The context of what led to the comment is not clear and O’Donnell is laughing while she talks about witchcraft.”

Is this a joke, and if so, why does it lack a punchline? Is O’Donnell in fact a witch? These are the questions that keep me up at night.

That being said, there are, of course, politicians who are witty, which brings me to my second reason why politicians can’t be funny: There is a large portion of the American population that doesn’t have a sense of humor.

You know the type — Debbie Downers, Stuffy Sallys, those people you never want to play Apples to Apples with because they vote “ice cream” as the most suitable noun for the adjective “tasty.” Just for simplicity’s sake, let’s call them literalists, because they take everything painfully literally.

Literalness, of course, leads to political correctness. And political correctness is the No. 1 killer of humor.

Just ask Barack Obama, who has taken flak for his jokes about the Special Olympics, Nancy Reagan holding séances in the White House and, of course, his malicious attacks on the oft-persecuted tanning community, and its hapless victims, Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi and Rep. John Boehner.

I don’t, however, think Obama was joking when he called Kanye West “a jackass.”

Literalism is especially troublesome because, for whatever reason, politicians and pundits love to make jokes about other politicians and pundits dying, going missing, having freak hiking accidents, developing dissociative fugue, etc. etc.

Naturally the literalists take these remarks to mean that certain politicians actually want to kill other politicians, like when New Hampshire state Rep. Timothy Horrigan, following the Alaska plane crash that killed former Sen. Ted Stevens, remarked on his Facebook, “Well a dead Palin wd be even more dangerous than a live one … she is all about her myth & if she was dead she cldn’t commit any more gaffes,” according to CBS News.

Horrigan resigned shortly after.

Or when Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., joked at a National Republican Senatorial Committee retreat: “So Obama, Pelosi and Reid are in a row boat, and it springs a leak and starts to sink. Who gets saved?” Answer: “The American people.”

This is, perhaps, a joke best told in private discussion. Or just not at all.

Finally, I want to end this column with a little anecdote that really touched me. It’s the story of ole Otis “Bullman” Hensley.

Hensley, a former candidate for governor of Kentucky, is maybe the best example of why politicians should never try to be funny.

It was 2008, and the Bullman, amid a heated primary race, decided to go to the store to buy some ground beef. According to Fox News, “While there, Hensley encountered a woman with her two nieces, ages 11 and 13.”

“I offered to trade her a fattening hog for those girls,” Hensley told Fox News. “I meant it as a joke. I’ve said it a million times. Most people get a kick out of it.”

But believe it or not, this woman did not think Hensley’s joke was funny. Actually, she filed a lawsuit against Hensley. Also amazingly, Hensley did not win his bid for governor.

I think we can all take a away some very important morals from this story: first, that jokes are easily misunderstood and thus should be kept private or avoided altogether by those seeking approval from the public; and second, at the very least offer two fattening hogs — one is just kind of insulting.

E-mail Molly at mog4@pitt.edu.