Will Ferrell Update: Partner Says Bush Burned Down America's House

Here’s an update on the Will Ferrell one-man Bush-bashing show. The Washington Post also promoted the upcoming show "You’re Welcome, America" in Sunday's Outlook section by interviewing Ferrell’s Bill Maheresque writing partner, Adam McKay. The Post’s Rachel Dry at least added a little skepticism to the proceeding as McKay (employing the royal "We" to associate Ferrell with his every liberal gurgle) suggested Bush had burned down America’s house and had no right to attempt self-deprecating humor:

POST: Bush himself seemed in a pretty wisecracking, self-deprecating mood these days, especially in his final news conference last week. What did you think?

McKAY: We were flabbergasted....It's not the time or place for any of it. It's sort of like if I burn down my house by falling asleep with a cigarette in bed and then I was being interviewed by the local news and was making jokes.

POST: It's not the time or place for him to be doing it, but it is the time or place for you?

McKAY: We aren't the president. As citizens, there's only a couple things we can do. One of them is to interpret, and the other is to try and laugh a little bit about it because it's been such a brutal eight years....That is one hundred percent our job to do that. You don't want the person who's in the middle of everything to be making jokes and be doing fake tap dancing.

If the president can’t do humor, just policy, that would suggest McKay and Will Ferrell should just do humor, and lay off all the wild-eyed political analysis about America’s house burning down.

But McKay continued by suggesting the public is uncomfortable when people in authority like Bush "do bad things,,,.But at least the public can prosecute them to some degree or form opinions about what happened." The Post challenged him again: "But it's going to be funny? In the way that public prosecutions are hilarious?" McKay defensively suggested he was angrier in his interview mode than the play is.

McKay added that unlike Bush, Barack Obama is an "actual adult who knows how to work," like Lisa Simpson, implying that Bush is more like Homer:

POST: How will President Obama work as a punch line?

McKAY: It's sort of like how Homer Simpson is the funniest character ever, and Lisa Simpson's not necessarily the funniest character. Obama's an actual adult who knows how to work.

POST: Wait, so Obama is Lisa Simpson?

McKAY: Homer Simpson is crazy funny -- a complete idiot and narcissist, and Lisa's the mature one, and she probably gets a laugh once an episode or something.

In other words, he's too smart and socially conscious to ridicule.