Author: Tyler Kearn
It seems as if the politics of our culture have become inverted. It is not the electorate or the journalists, but the comedians who have become the kingmakers, at least, so claim Conan O’Brien and Stephen Colbert.
Since the late-night shows have returned without writers, due to the ongoing writer’s strike, they have been desperate to fill time with entertainment of any sort. So for the first time, hosts of shows are communicating and interacting on air with rival hosts on other networks. Earlier this month, Jay Leno and Jimmy Kimmel were each the guest on the other’s show on the same night-one could watch Leno interview Kimmel on The Tonight Show on NBC, and then immediately switch over to ABC to watch Kimmel interview Leno on Jimmy Kimmel Live. However, the most interesting of these exchanges has been between Stephen Colbert of The Colbert Report and Conan O’Brien of Late Night With Conan O’Brien over the candidacy of Mike Huckabee, a frontrunner Republican Presidential candidate.
It all started when Huckabee went on Colbert’s show in November- when Huckabee had all of 1% of the Republican vote. On the show, Huckabee jokingly declared Colbert as his running mate. All the late-night shows went on hiatus for two months due to the writer’s strike, and, in the meantime, Huckabee won the Iowa Republican primary and entered the national consciousness.
When the shows came back from hiatus, Conan O’Brien was the first to assert that he was responsible for Huckabee’s sudden rise to prominence. Mike Huckabee had campaigned in Iowa with Chuck Norris, and O’Brien claimed that his frequent segment featuring random Walker Texas Ranger clips led to Norris’ resurgence as a cult icon. Norris’ support of Huckabee led him to victory in Iowa, therefore O’Brien deemed himself responsible for Huckabee’s win. In other words, O’Brien made Norris, and Norris made Huckabee, thus O’Brien made Huckabee.
Of course, Colbert countered, claiming that from appearing on his program, Huckabee had received the “Colbert Bump.” Colbert then “attacked” O’Brien personally, saying that they never hit it off well (while playing footage of O’Brien shooting him in the heart with a pistol), and threatening to kick O’Brien’s “translucent white ass.”
O’Brien responded one more time, wittily explaining that for simply mentioning Colbert on his show, he was helping Colbert’s career and that if he made Colbert, and Colbert made Huckabee, then he was responsible for making Huckabee. (He also explained that his “ass” was not translucent, but “chalky white with streaks of pink.”)
Obviously, this exchange is not meant to be taken seriously, and this whole episode has allowed each show to fill valuable airtime without needing their writers. Still, the hosts do raise a frightening question-what if these shows really did significantly contribute to Huckabee’s, or any other candidate’s, success? What if voters really did vote for Huckabee because they knew he had a sense of humor from appearing on Colbert’s show, or because he appeared alongside Chuck Norris?
There was much buzz when Colbert “attempted” to run on the Presidential primary ticket in South Carolina. Most everyone knew it was a huge joke, including the political parties who disqualified him from the election for only trying to run in one state. Yet, people still got behind Colbert and showed their support-his 1,000,000 strong Facebook group reached the million marker weeks before Barack Obama’s. People wanted to see how far they could take the charade.
It is possible this same mentality could be persuading people to vote for Huckabee, or for that matter, could persuade them to vote for any candidate of the comedians’ choosing. The problem is that politics itself has become something of a joke. Politicians seem to say whatever people want to hear when they are running, promising different things to different groups of people, and then doing whatever they want when they actually get in office. For instance, there was almost no correlation between the values of candidate George W. Bush and his presidency. It makes it hard to take politics seriously when the politicians themselves cannot be taken seriously. This, in turn, is making people increasingly ambivalent about the process.
In a way, it is easier to make it all into jest. You know not to believe Colbert when he says he will build a pneumatic tube to fire illegal immigrants across the border to Mexico, because he is not meant to be taken seriously. In the same vein, you know not to believe Huckabee when he says Colbert is his running mate. The more candidates and their politics become a joke, the less that voters have to worry about believing. Unfortunately, politics are supposed to be serious, and politicians do have an agenda. If a candidate like Huckabee were to win due to humor, when he takes office, people might suddenly find it to be not that funny.
Tyler Kearn is a sophomore Economics major. He can be reached at tkearn@oxy.edu.
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