Lampooning Palin - the Sport of Progressives

Palin punching has been the pastime of choice for the Hollywood hordes ever since the former Alaska Governor first burst upon their free-range radars as McCain's running mate during the last presidential follies.

Professional players like Tina Fey and David Letterman have become well known Palin baiters, and William Shatner has shown up on Conan's Tonight Show reading her resignation speech and subsequent Tweets as beat poetry, accompanied by bass and bongos.

So the question that arises is this: is it an absolute ironclad requirement that everyone associated with the American entertainment industry be a political liberal?

There used to be a "casting couch" in the days of the studio system. Young starry-eyed starlets couldn't make it in Hollywood without unfolding their divine femininity on the divan in the studio boss's oak paneled office. And maybe for the director and producer as well. And for an agent if she expected to be signed by one. 

(AP Photo/Robert DeBerry)                       (AP Photo)
Why all the Palin lampooning but nary an Obama burlesque from Hollywood?
Does the Screen Actor's Guild screen out all but progressives?

So what are the criteria for success in the show biz of today? Has the casting couch been replaced with a probing interview by a Political Correctness Czar? Do new singers have to audition by warbling Woody Guthrie or Barbra Streisand? Must actors perform pieces from Arthur Miller? Do they have to take liberal quotient tests or swear a loyalty oath to progressivism?

While a few conservative actors have prospered over the years (John Wayne and Charlton Heston come to mind) Shatner snagged his Emmy not for being conservative but for portraying his Denny Crane character on Boston Legal as a blatant liberal's-eye-view stereotype of a conservative buffoon ("he is pro-life, pro-death penalty, uses every possible loophole to get out of paying taxes and donated to the Jack Abramoff Ball." – Wikipedia) who considers gun control as a Communist plot and frequently shoots people.

All this isn't to imply that libertarians necessarily disagree with the Palin pummeling or fail to laugh at Shatner's conservative caricature, but constant pounding on progressive preferences just gets so incredibly tedious.

Comic impersonator Brent Mendenhall made a comfortable living as a "Dubya double" lampooning President Bush during Jay Leno's Tonight tenure.

So where's the outré Obama imitator who answers all interview questions with his campaign clichés?

Interviewer: "What will taxpayers have left after you allow the Bush tax cuts to expire?"

Faux-bama: "Change."

Interviewer: "What will patients have to do to get medical attention under your healthcare plan?"

Faux-Bama: "Hope."

Interviewer: "How should rational people respond when asked if they can get along without you?"

Faux-Bama: "Yes we can."

Of course, it may just all come with the territory. Perhaps people who have been practicing emoting for a living since infancy can't be expected to take time out to consider such alien sensations as logic or reason or simple common sense.

And that, in fact, is what makes them the great performers that they are. It's how they converse with the private passions that prowl the inner spaces of us all. It explains why we celebrate celebrities.

But feelings without reflection make poor public policy.

Which is why they should all abstain from mouthing anything that smacks of politics or philosophy or economics or any other topic that requires a modicum of logic or reason or simple common sense. But then, understanding that they know nothing of such subjects would, in itself, require logic or reason or simple common sense.

Either way, we seem to be stuck with the irrational opinions of spectacularly insecure emotionalists.

So just for a change of pace, just to relieve the media monotony, just to mix things up a bit, wouldn't a little Obama bashing from the performing professions be refreshing from time to time?