Conservatives have trouble laughing at themselves, even when something is funny. It makes sense, I guess. When your entire emotional and intellectual existence consists of being angry and hateful and racist, it's probably hard to have a sense of humor, especially when a black man is making fun of you.
At last night's White House Correspondence Dinner, SNL comedian Seth Meyers and President Obama both took aim at Donald Trump, who was in the audience. It was a hilarious roasting, shown on C-SPAN.
Through it all, Trump sat stone-faced and steaming, appearing to be in some sort of a combined state of rage, embarrassment, shock and naivete--naïve for being unprepared to find that after the last few weeks of his shameful gutter behavior against the President, his own ass would be on the menu at the annual dinner.
Obama said that Trump has shown he has the credentials to be President.
"The men's cooking team did not impress the judges from Omaha steaks, but you recognized that this was a lack of leadership, so you fired Gary Busey," Obama said, referring to a idiotic contest taking place lately on The Apprentice.
"These," Obama said, "are the kinds of decisions that would keep me up at night. Well-handled, sir. Well-handled.".
Trump, stone-cold, utterly humiliated, glared angrily at Obama as the crowd erupted.
Bill O'Reilly has a similar problem. He could be seen reacting with an irritated, supercilious look on his mug when Obama made a lighthearted joke about FOXNews. Obama showed a clip from the Lion King and referred to it as "video of my birth", and then looked over at O'Reilly and explained to them that it wasn't really video of his birth, that it was just a joke, and that the network doesn't need to investigate it.
With everyone around him laughing, O'Reilly looked put-off.
This is a man who makes fun of the President, and just about every other national celebrity, five nights a week.
We've seen similar sourpussness among Montana republicans. When Schweitzer "branded" a bunch of idiotic Tea Party bills with his hot iron, the GOP leaders couldn't even crack a smile or admit that it was kind of hilarious. Senate presidentJim Peterson declared it"disrespectful of the institution." This from a guy whose major policy initiative of the session was an attempt to codify the "code of the west" into state law.
And as for disrespectful, how about the GOP's birther bill aimed at the President, or the "BS" cattle brand that GOP legislators were showing off?
Thin-skinnedness, especially the public kind, is the worst trait a politician can have, and Trump has already suffered badly from it, often cutting-off, insulting or belittling interviewers who ask him pointed questions about himself.
Note that when Myers roasted Obama right to his face, at one point making a joke about how his administration of being a disappointment, the President laughed along.
It is interesting to consider whether some strategy lay behind the targeting of Trump by Obama on Saturday night.
To America in the main, Trump was made to look like an ass, a small, silly circus performer who's 15 minutes are (or should be) up.
But among the mouth-breathing Obama haters, Trump might have benefited. Obama's roasting of Trump, the White House surely realized, would cause FOXNews to take the bait and defend him. Trump, meanwhile, will use the events of Saturday night to try proving, to the right-wing trash that is the GOP primary electorate, that he is Obama's number one enemy. He'll try to sell them the idea that the White House is afraid of him.
This diary is cross-posted at The Montana Cowgirl Blog.