Presidential Satire Needs a Bailout

The helicopter lifted off -- along with my heart -- carrying off into the past a comedy writer's life's dream; leaving behind a new day, a new administration, a new colorful target with heartfelt hopes.
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The helicopter lifted off -- along with my heart -- carrying off into the past a comedy writer's life's dream; leaving behind a new day, a new administration, a new colorful target with heartfelt hopes of providing a daily menu from which we writers are able to select the laugh du jour.

Note to self: Watch the "color" references...unless it's really clever.

So long W, you've been a great sport. Flying off into presidential comedy history along with Nixon, Reagan, Carter, Bush, Clinton. I wasn't around for Taft, but granddad could peel off the President is so fat jokes like there was no tomorrow. Some were better than others. Some needed a perfectly timed ingenue or a well-placed cigar (or both), but really, they were all setting 'em up for us to knock 'em down. Course, W, the grandest punchline of them all, left them all in the dust. The Wayne Gretzky of Presidential hi-jinks and just stunning failure, he could score unintended laughs from almost any angle. Stewart and Colbert have Emmys that should be named after the Crawford retiree. We may never see his kind again. But, alas, we must move on. Leno and Letterman have READ THE SAD STATE OF SATIRE HERE.

Award-winning TV writer Steve Young blogs at the appropriately-named SteveYoungonPolitics.com

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