QUOTOMATIC SELECTOR SAY: "Would those terabytes of pornography and such more aptly be dubbed 'terrorbytes'?"
Monday, May 18, 2009 MORE OBAMA INAPPROPRIATE LAUGHISM!The Ole Perfesser at the Wall Street Journal:
At his Arizona State University commencement speech last Wednesday, Mr. Obama noted that ASU had refused to grant him an honorary degree, citing his lack of experience, and the controversy this had caused. He then demonstrated ASU's point by remarking, "I really thought this was much ado about nothing, but I do think we all learned an important lesson. I learned never again to pick another team over the Sun Devils in my NCAA brackets. . . . President [Michael] Crowe and the Board of Regents will soon learn all about being audited by the IRS."
Oh no -- he's not actually going to --
Just a joke about the power of the presidency. Made by Jay Leno it might have been funny. But as told by Mr. Obama, the actual president of the United States, it's hard to see the humor. Surely he's aware that other presidents, most notably Richard Nixon, have abused the power of the Internal Revenue Service to harass their political opponents...
The Perfesser offers no evidence that Obama has thus misused his power, but Tim Geithner got away with not paying his taxes on time, and if Obama will let a pal get away with that, there's no telling of what else he may be capable.
And on and on:
Mr. Obama has been accused of not appreciating the importance of financial capital to the proper functioning of the economy. But ill-chosen remarks like his ASU audit threat suggest that he also doesn't appreciate the role of moral capital. That, too, is essential to the proper functioning of a modern economy.
Jokes, it appears, are moral hazards, unless you say "Heh Indeed" after them. Then they're adorable.
Believe it or not, this is actually on its way to becoming a thing, as one Masked Marauder has also denounced Obama's joke. "But look at this another way -- what if it turns out that ASU President winds up in the dragnet of random IRS audits now?" he reasons. "Completely unrelated to the joke you understand, but still getting audited all the same! This gaffe by Obama actually would put him in a bad position were this to happen... A truly idiotic joke that really has no good defense or even a good excuse." Where were his joke vetters?
At least when the spam artists do this -- "Obama joked about holocaust. Want your babymaker to be hot and filled with blood again and again? http://meijcan.vigbobom.cn/" -- they have sound business reasons for doing so. This and their outraged reaction to the Correspondents' Dinner and Obama's Special Olympics joke have convinced me that conservatives have a squad devoted to explaining to America that the President is not funny. Thus they hope to neutralize Obama's humor advantage in time for the 2010 elections, when they will bust out more Magic Negro jokes and sweep the field. The program will pick up speed as soon as their reconnaissance teams report back on what human beings are really like.
