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Lighten Up, America
I am not referring to the color of peoples' skin, I am referring to the thickness of it. The president-elect made a small joke about Nancy Reagan having séances in the White House and maybe he got a little mixed up about having séances instead of consulting astrologers, but so effing what? Immediately after he finished, the Sean Hannitys of the world started to beat him up and finally I see he had to call Mrs. Reagan to apologize. Please Mr. President-Elect, don't let whatever sense of humor you possess be beaten out of you this early. This is what we need. John F. Kennedy had it, and it was before the Internet when you could actually make off-the-cuff remarks without having to apologize to every Tom, Dick and Nancy. This is another of the many dangers of the Internet, it makes people in high places turn into machines, the very thing we want out of our lives. (But that is another blog altogether.)
We want a real live breathing human, who can talk to us, occasionally make us laugh a little, and God forbid insult someone. And by the way, I've met Nancy Reagan several times and she seemed to have a fine sense of humor and probably was the last person on earth offended by this. I am sorry he was bullied into calling her. That kind of comment does not warrant an apology. And I hope -- I hope -- this is not the beginning of the robotization of Barack Obama. Go ahead, Mr. President-Elect, be who you are. That is the reason we voted for you. Don't let them, on the day of your first press conference, turn you into what we are so grateful to have finally gotten rid of. You were great today.
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Obama shouldn't attmept comedy.. Its not his thing..
When I first heard Obama's "joke," I flinched. His first news conference and he has to make a snarky reference to an inoffensive, elderly woman? I think an apology was the right thing to do.
Yay, Albert. Right on!
Albert, babe, love your work, but I think you miss the point. First of all, I don't think Obama is the type of guy who can be bullied into an apology from the likes of a Sean Hannity. You REALLY think so?
Secondly, the silly thing was a diversion from being jumped on for saying he only spoke to "live" presidents, and better to take a shot at a liberal joke than to have one's gaffe played on a loop on Fox.
Albert, you're a pro. Come on! Get with it. BTW.......loved your Belson tribute. Funniest ten minutes of my life.
Darn those Internet tubes!!!
I guess Albert Brooks read my "comment" about the "seance thing".... like yeah dream on....famous guy gets a blog..i get a "comment" now and then in The Huffington Post.....I could write his ( Brooks ) stuff...actually i gave up on the entire "performance thing" when i discovered that George Carlin was doing all my material....but then he could make "funny faces" .......I can only "do" Andy Rooney.
anyway thank you Huffington Post for the opportunity to rant now and than and still remain largley ignored by america and my wife.
You'd think that would cheer ol' Andy up a little bit.
Sorry, but if you're that ignored, maybe you should retink your delivery.
When I saw obama say this, I didn't know the reference, which turned out to be inaccurate, anyway. What it looked like was just a man making a joke about the simple fact that a woman's husband was dead. Ha ha. See how funny that is? I laughed, don't get me wrong, but I suspect that O went home and thought about how much he would like a joke being told about his grandmother (and his advisers probably give him the "you have to apologize for this" line regardless of the reason). It came across as a little bit cruel.
You are WAY off the mark.
Oh? thanks for setting me straight.
What was off about what I said? Did she hold seances? No, she didn't. So the joke, at the moment, was just about going to a widow to conjure up the spirit of her dead husband. It wasn't a horribly cruel joke, but it was just making a joke at the expense of Nancy and her dead husband. I don't care if people joke about Ron, all I said is that I can see why someone might feel the need to apologize for it. And, because there ultimately was no context, it came across as careless and cruel.
So I think you're WAY off the mark! Yeah. If there were double all caps, to make the letters even bigger and more capital, I would have used that, just to one up your all caps. You know, those all caps almost had me convinced that my statement about how the joke could have come across was wrong.
Ah, the internets. We all need to take a valium.
The fact that Sean Hannity had the balls to even take Obama on for saying something off the cuff is in and of itself amazing...Hannity thrives on being rude and crude, so I agree with Mr. Brooks but I would take it a step further and tell Sean Hannity to get over himself! TROGLODYTE!
I believe that President elect Obama was being sensitive to the fact that Nancy Reagan's husband is deceased and the joke appeared to mock the way in which she might be reduced to contacting him. From everything I've read I don't notice that Mr. Obama yields to public opinion as much as he yields to the dictates of his heart. It's great to make jokes, and listening to Mr. Obama roast Rahm Emanuel on You Tube shows off his humor at its best. I'm sure we'll get plenty of humor when he finally assumes office and has to deal with possibly the worst, most do-nothing congress in American history. Now, what I want to know is why can't I find a copy of Mr. Brook's genius album, "A Star is Bought". I lost my copy years ago and I have never been able to replace it.
Albert Brooks for Secretary of Funny!
"Turkey Dinner!"
Actually, I'm glad he aplogized. Whatever you want to think, Nancy Reagan is the martriarch of the Rep party, and she did just sustain what could have been a life-threatening injury. I thought the remark was fluff, but this soon in the game...let's just let it slide.
If we take offense at EVERYTHING that is hurled at Obama, it really makes us no better than the party we just defeated, doesn't it? It shows me that, again, we finally have a GENTLEMAN in the White House. Gentlemen aplogize for off-handed remarks made about elderly women. I just wish people would stop regarding Obama as WEAK when he thinks twice about an off-handed joke. We've all done it.
Hear, hear. I totally agree. It was funny, AND he apologized to an old lady whose feelings might have been hurt. That makes him a winner twice, in my view.
Absolutely i agree with you both!!
Pardon me, but what did Mrs. Reagan ever do to Obama. A very cheap shot and far from fluff.
Well said, Mr. Brooks. And I still consider "Lost in America" one of my favorite films.
Well said, Mr. Brooks. And I still consider "Lost in America" one of my all-time favorite films.
"Save the trees. I'm sick of it. What are you going to build your house out of- meat?" -A. Brooks (1976).
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