The other day, I linked to this MAD Magazine piece about a George W. Bush action figure. A lot of message boards and other weblogs have linked to it and discussed it, and I'm amazed how many folks didn't realize that there really is a George W. Bush action figure of him in that flight suit. In fact, I think MAD got hold of a real one and photographed it to make their ad parody. Some also wondered if MAD had been that hard on Clinton. The answer, I think, is that they've been getting a little tougher on each succeeding president but, yes, they were pretty rough on Bill and Hillary. I can't think of anyone anywhere who's even vaguely in the business of political humor who didn't rip the Clintons. They made it pretty easy.
It almost isn't a matter of liking or disliking a politician; it's a question of access points, and eventually all public figures provide them. Right this minute, if someone hired me to write jokes about Howard Dean, I don't know what I'd write. He hasn't done anything egregiously stupid…yet. He seems to have flip-flopped on a number of issues and he seems to be a bit reckless with what he says, but he hasn't done enough of that for people to laugh in agreement if you write about those things. Same thing with Gephardt, same thing with Kerry or whoever. At some point, we'll decide that the Democratic nominee, whoever it is, has certain flaws that are exploitable for humor, the way Dan Quayle was dumb, Bill Clinton was horny, Al Gore was dull, Bob Dole was ancient, etc. For a time, it looked like the prevailing caricature of George W. Bush was going to be either of a Word Mangler or a Drunken Frat Boy, but it seems to be edging towards Phony Macho.
Some say that whoever the Democratic nominee is, the Republican machine will leap to portray him as weak, dishonest and, if possible, unpatriotic. I just hope, if they succeed in convincing America that the guy has negatives, they're not those. It's going to be a long, nasty campaign and it would be nice if the late night shows didn't wind up just recycling old Al Gore jokes and changing the names.