Free Republic

From the perspective of late-night joke writers, there’s really only one person running for president. A staggering 97% of the jokes Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Fallon told about the candidates in September targeted President Donald Trump, a study released Monday found. That’s 455 jokes about Trump and 14 about Democrat Joe Biden, according to the Center for Media and Public Affairs at George Mason University. That doesn’t even count 64 jokes made about Trump’s family or administration, the study said. “When Trump’s onstage, everyone else is blacked out,” said Robert Lichter, communication professor at George Mason. He’s been studying late-night...

Over the years, I’ve shared lots of political humor from the late-night talk shows. Much of this humor is left leaning, but I can appreciate good jokes even if they’re at my expense. In recent months, though, I’ve speculated that there’s been a shift away from Obama, especially on the part of Jay Leno (see here, here, and here). Well, it seems that I was right in sensing a change. Here’s a report from Fox News about a new study. A study of gags by late-night comics during the first half of the year found an abrupt change from 2012. Now Obama and Democrats are providing...

No room for a laughingstock It is humor that often drives the final nail in the political coffin. The images of Gerald Ford falling on his face and hitting spectators with golf balls outlived his presidency. Jimmy Carter endured the Iranian hostage crisis and the misery index, but he had no comeback to the million yuks that followed his battle with an attacking rabbit. All of which is to say that Deadeye Dick Cheney is history. He is the Dead Veep Walking, whether he knows it or not. Ridicule is fatal. It's not just late-night comedians declaring open season on...

American comics make merry on KerryCHIDANAND RAJGHATTATIMES NEWS NETWORK[ SUNDAY, JULY 18, 2004 08:23:52 PM ] WASHINGTON: John Kerry is so dull and boring that ''he has the charisma of a retired mortician.'' John Kerry can ''make a firefight in Vietnam sound like a mathematics text book.'' He's a sort of candidate who ''needs to be reminded to smile.'' The American Presidential election is shaping up to be a contest between dumb and dull. While George Bush's lack of grey matter has been the butt of jokes for years, John Kerry has overnight acquired the reputation of being so...