U.S. News: Late Night Comedians Target Republicans 3-to-1 in 2011
Interesting analysis below, but what’s most glaring is that neither Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid nor House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi received enough attention from our brave Late Night gang to even rank on this list. However! Two years-plus out of office, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney got hit 36 and 66 times respectively.
Takes an awful lot of guts to Speak! Truth! To! The! Out! Of! Power!
Republicans were joked about by a margin of 3 to 1 over Democrats on late-night talk shows last year, but the biggest joke for Jay Leno and Jimmy Fallon was President Obama, according to a new George Mason University study provided to Whispers.
Republicans took the top title because so many of them were speared by Fallon, Leno, and David Letterman, according to Robert Lichter, president of the school’s Center for Media and Public Affairs. …
But when it came to the top target of the 2011, Obama and shamed former New York Rep. Anthony Weiner came in first and second. Obama was gored by 342 jokes, Weiner 220. Third was former GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain, followed by Texas Gov. Rick Perry at 186 and Osama bin Laden at 172.
Lichter noted that far down on the list were the winners of Tuesday’s Iowa GOP caucuses, Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, and Ron Paul. “This shows,” he says, “that it’s hard to vote for somebody while you’re laughing at them.”
But, he adds, it’s probably not an ominous sign for the president that he’s late night’s biggest joke target. Lichter tells Whispers that his totals are far below the 500-plus that used to slam former Presidents Clinton and Bush every year. “Obama is substantially lower than any other president,” said Lichter.
And this was during an off-year without any kind of major election.
These brave establishment Palace Guards will be much, much worse this year.
[Cross-posted from Big Hollywood]
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Comments
Funny
Submitted by rwnewsnut on Thu, 01/05/2012 - 4:43pm.
I read that article. After proclaiming that Barack Obama was the top target, that author goes on to list jokes about the republican candidates - how convenient. I doubt Leno and Letterman had very many jokes at Obama's expense. The joke probably included Obama abstractly.
The topic was on Politico today also. Same old - didn't list any jokes about Obama.
Beyond the numbers, look at the type of jokes.
Submitted by Now_I_Want_Change on Thu, 01/05/2012 - 5:52pm.
Most of the so-called jokes about obama are pretty tame, but the majority of the jokes about the current GOP candidates and Bush and Cheney really had a derogatory streak to them, generally with the intention of showing the butt of the jokes as yokels, liars, imbeciles, etc. For the most part the ones about obama haven't been anywhere near as derogatory, because everyone knows telling the truth about him would be 'racist'!
Comedians
Submitted by Time Will Tell on Thu, 01/05/2012 - 6:30pm.
Webster's Dictionary comedian a entertainer who uses any of various physical or verbal means to be amusing. These clowns Letterman, Leno, Fallon are neither funny or amusing. This study by pinheads is typical of today colleges and this humor is typical of today's liberals. I personally long for the days when comedy was king when Bob Hope, Lucille Ball, Johnny Carson, Carol Burnett, Jonathan Winters, Milton Berle, Art Carney, Red Skelton, and Jack Benny were performing. As for jokes about Obama he is always shown in a good light.
An interesting thing to do
Submitted by octavioj on Thu, 01/05/2012 - 11:54pm.
Would be to track this year after year and then see how badly portrayed by the media conservatives are. I would think that Republicans would stay on the 3-1 range almost every year. I would love to be proven wrong though.