Late Night Comedians Bash McCain, Lay Off Obama

Apparently, the presidential candidacy of Barack Obama is no laughing matter.

Mimicking their so-called serious counterparts in the so-called serious press, late night comedians have comedically bashed John McCain far more this year than the junior senator from Illinois.

So says a new study about to be released by the Center for Media and Public Affairs as reported by the LA Times Thursday (h/t Hot Air):

A hilarious new study of late-night political jokes, due to be released later today, finds the network comedians clearly avoiding humor about Democratic candidate Barack Obama. [...]

The center found that the network shows broadcast only 169 jokes about Obama, compared with 428 about Bush. McCain drew 328 jokes. Hillary Clinton, who dropped out of the presidential race and much political news in early June, still drew more than twice as many attempted yuk lines (382) as Obama. [...]

Combining the laugh lines from all five shows, Bush was the ...

... most mocked, with 605; Clinton had 562; McCain got 549; and Obama trailed, with 382.

Letterman had the most fun at Clinton's expense, with 146 jokes about her and only 46 about Obama. Leno had the most Bush jokes (208), with Clinton right behind at 204.

Colbert worked McCain over the most, with 129 jokes, compared with 91 for Obama and 79 on Clinton. An example: "It's time the media started trumpeting McCain's exciting story. He's old, and no one likes him."

The best observation by the Times:

The study did not explore why Obama got off so lightly on the network shows from New York and Burbank. So we'll all just have to guess: probably out of simple respect for Obama's long public service.

I couldn't agree more!

Readers will be apprised if the the full study has any interesting tidbits the Times missed.