Dublin Opinion

Usually I don’t bother my arse reading Nick Cohen, but the freaky picture above on today’s Guardian website caught my attention and so like the dummy I am, I clicked on the link. Inside, Cohen is berating the liberal left for a fuckload of crimes, including the inability to laugh at Barack Obama.

If you search on the net for ‘Jon Stewart’, ‘finance reform’ and ‘Obama’, you will find one of the most unintentionally funny sketches the US Comedy Central network has broadcast. Stewart dissects Barack Obama’s hypocrisy with his usual goggle-eyed relish. He shows that the Democrat had been all for the public funding of presidential candidates until he realised that his privately raised campaign donations would allow him to outspend John McCain.

Stewart’s audience makes a far better spectacle than the comedian on the stage, however. They had roared when he mocked Bush, Clinton and McCain, but when he ridiculed Obama, a few tittered nervously and most sunk into a shocked silence. Ordinary political satire had become a kind of blasphemy.

‘You are allowed to laugh at him,’ Stewart said. Hardly anyone wanted to.

So. I googled “Jon Stewart’, ‘finance reform’ and ‘Obama” and sure enough the clip came up. You can see it for yourself below, including the bit where the audience applaud Stewart’s punchline about Obama and funding. That’s after about four minutes of hearty laughing.

The rest of his article reads like a jaded Kevin Myers.

God. Why would you bother?