Sounds Funny When It's True

I remember growing up in the south (well, Florida, and while that is geographically southern in the U.S. it isn’t considered the “south”) and when I moved to Minnesota in the seventh grade everybody talked funny. It was a goofy time because I remember listening to this kids that sounded like they had marbles in their mouths and they all thought I was the funny sounding one.

A few decades later and I sound like I have marbles in my mouth and I am listening to East Coast accents everyday (since I’ve moved to New Jersey.) People here sound like stereotypical “New Jersey” and “New Yorkers” while I am told I sound like I am from “Canada.” (What? Canada? Really?) In any case accent is a funny thing.

Nothing much has changed since I was a kid. Movies used to make the New York accent sound “tough” and the southern accent sound “ignorant” or “narrow minded.” Later, movies like Fargo made northern U.S. folks sound naïve at best. Accent just helps entertainers exaggerate a point in a super humorous manner (regardless of whether or not the stereotype is true.) I think I can say that from an observed perspective. Anyone who travels much at all knows that there are ignorant, narrow-minded, naïve folks all over this fine country, regardless of their accent.

Did you watch Saturday night live recently? The presentation of Governor Palin was a classic presentation of a stereotypical naïve beauty queen. Fundamentally it is the same treatment (funny stuff.) But then I read people say stuff like “Funny because it is true” and it gets me thinking. I still think the skit is actually very funny, but as a follow-up to a previous blog post I wrote on humor on Presidential candidates, it isn’t funny because it’s true. It is funny because it is familiar (the jokes are familiar.) Here is a funny set of facts that are actually funny because they are true.

On Palin credentials compared to other candidates during this election period:

First a review of Gov. Palin’s credentials: 4 years of town council experience, 6 years as mayor, 1 year on state regulatory commission, 2 years as governor.

On the Democrat side:

Obama: 8 years in the Illinois state senate, 2 years as a federal junior senator from Illinois.

Hillary Clinton: nearly 8 years in government elected positions.

Kathleen Sebelius: 8 years of experience in the state legislature, 8 years as state insurance commissioner, 6 years as governor of Kansas.

Mark Warner: seriously considered as a possible candidate for election before publically stating he didn’t want to be considered (he only served 4 years as governor of Virginia.)

Tim Kaine: served as a mayor in Virginia for 4 years and more recently as the governor of Virginia for 3 years.

On the Republican side:

Mit Romney: considered a viable choice for Presidential candidate as well as Vice Presidential candidate (served only 4 years as Governor of Massachusetts.)

The issue for me is that overall this is the election that will go down in history as the first set of candidates with the least Washington experience. Oddly enough, at the same time, some of the candidates have copious amounts of experience. McCain (Republican Presidential candidate with 26 years of government experience and 15 years of military experience) and Biden (Democrat Vice Presidential candidate at 34 years of government experience) are leading the pack.

To be specific McCain didn’t get into politics until 1981, while Biden has been in Washington since 1973 (McCain, at that time was finishing up a 15 year career in the military, after being released as a prisoner of war after 6 years in 1973.)

The funny but true part: Palin sits in the middle of the “group with not a lot of experience” list, and ahead of Obama in number of years serving in an elected government position, yet after many, many months of having had an opportunity to laugh at Obama for not having much experience, it is late-comer Palin who is the butt of the jokes. If SNL did a skit about Obama not having a lot of experience, would it suddenly not be funny or would the same folks say “funny because it’s true?”

SNL joked about her foreign relations experience amounting to “seeing Russia from (her) backyard.” More funny but true:

As Governor Sarah has been on the ground in Kuwait visiting troops (Alaskan National Guard troops to support her state.) http://asecondhandconjecture.com/index.php/2008/08/30/sarah-palin-kuwait-gallery/

Governor Palin has visited troops in Germany (again, this is about supporting her state’s U.S. military citizens from Alaska.)

Governor Palin manages a large border state with Canada and so an element of our U.S./Canadian relationship.

As Commander in Chief for Alaskan National Guard troops, they train Mongolian troops each year (both PR as well as military experience for Palin.)

Alaska has the largest area of U.S. International waters to deal with (and all that this includes as a point of practical management and experience.)

As Governor she is responsible for the Missile Defense System that protects the U.S. from countries like North Korea.

As governor of a state with a critical oil pipeline that serves the country, she is responsible for the protection of that pipeline.

The funny but true part: Palin is the butt of jokes about not having foreign relations experience.

As governor, she deals with Canada, Mongolia as well as Japan with a number of State related issues. Again, we are not simply talking about “visiting troops” or “shaking hands with foreign dignitaries.” We are talking about real responsibility in addition to shaking hands. But yet where are the Obama jokes about his “extensive” foreign-relations experience? Nobody is questioning McCains foreign-relations experience… then again McCain is running for President not Vice President. Would this joke remain funny if SNL made fun of Obama’s experience?

There are other funny moments that make all of us laugh in the SNL skit (amongst other SNL political skits.) And I continue to think they are funny… well, because stereotypes are funny. But not so much because they are true but because they help us not take ourselves too seriously. I am not sure, though, that people are saying these jokes are “funny but true” for such reasons.

I will never understand why Palin who seems to get talked about for issues like (1) having religious beliefs, or (2) not having enough experience, but at the same time Obama is getting a pass on (1) having religious beliefs, or (2) not having enough experience.

I will end with a joke.

Two candidates are running for office. One candidate says, “Hey, they tell me I don’t have enough experience and you have about the same level of experience I do! What gives?” The other candidate says, “Yeah, well, you see I have the right kind of "not enough experience" while the problem is that you have the wrong kind of not enough experience!”

Funny because it’s true.