Dennis Miller has usually been happy to spray his acerbic wit across the political spectrum, but things will be different on his new CNBC talk program. President Bush is in a mock-free zone.
“I like him,” Miller explained. “I’m going to give him a pass. I take care of my friends.”
I’m a big fan of Dennis Miller, though I won’t actually be able to watch his new show because I don’t get CNBC. And my problem with him isn’t that he likes Bush, or that he’s seemingly become more conservative of late. As many fans have pointed out, his liberal stand on social issues – abortion, gay rights, religion – hasn’t changed; he just takes a position on security issues that’s more in line with the right-wingers lately, because the left-wingers are too busy saying “why do they hate us?” to bother worrying about security. Or, to quote Dennis himself:
“If two gay guys want to get married, I couldn’t care less,” he said. “It’s their business. If some foreigner wants to blow their wedding up, I want my government to eliminate him.”
Damned straight. (No pun intended).
But Dennis, Dennis, Dennis… Giving Bush a free pass??? Agreeing not to criticize him at all? That’s not politics, that’s blind allegiance!
As far as I’m concerned, all politicians are fair game for attack, whether they’re on your “side” or not. And people ought to be even more critical of the people in their party. It’ll never happen – it goes against human nature. But there’s something to be said for the fact that a free society is free and open to self-criticism. That’s why editorials in Canada, the United States, Britain, and Israel attack the government daily… and the societies are stronger for it. While countries like Syria, Iran, and North Korea are totalitarian in nature and people who question the government go to prison – and they’re all the much weaker for it.
Everyone’s open to criticism. Especially President Bush. He’s not Satan, as much of the overseas world seems to think … but he’s certainly not perfect. Far from it. Legitimate political criticism is an important part of the democratic process. Do your show – and your credibility – a favour and forget the free pass, Dennis.
Not criticize the President????
I personally think that Dennis Miller should have his American Federation of Comedians card torn up.
(Yes there is, or was, such a union. I was a member, but i digress…)
On the other hand, a lot of people don’t think that Dubya really is the President.
Poor Joe Lieberman, our last chance…
I don’t think Miller is saying that Bush isn’t fair game – merely that he doesn’t want to attack him.
Why this should be cause for concern, or even comment, is beyond me, especially given that, as far as I know – having not watched Miller a lot – he doesn’t make a point of Being A Presidential Watchdog.
People ought to be critical of their own side, as a general matter of policy, but I’m not sure that stand-up comedy has been a useful sort of criticism in that useful, constructive sense for a very long time, if ever.
Jokes about Monica Lewinsky, after all, had no constructive effect on Pres. Clinton.
(Full disclosure: I like Bush, personally and on foreign policy in general. I didn’t like Clinton much personally or on many of his policies. I also thought that the Lewinsky jokes and their ilk were neither very funny (too easy, guys) nor very useful. Then again, I’ve never found most of the President-mocking humour all that funny, mostly because it seems to almost always be the usual rote party-line “hey, Republicans are mean and hate people! aren’t they BAD? some of them even believe in GOD! WTF, dude!?” variety. [I imagine what comparatively few right-wing comedians there are do the same in reverse, but I don’t know their material]. In other words, the comedic discourse is generally useless in a critical sense, preaching to the choir for an easy laugh.)