On a lighter note, Robert de Niro made news by attending an Obama campaign fundraiser and deadpanning this line:
"Callista Gingrich. Karen Santorum. Ann Romney. Now do you really think our country is ready for a white first lady? [Audience Laughter] Too soon, right?"...OK, not the best of jokes and definitely not the best of de Niro's performances, but not that big a deal. It probably would have been funnier with a better delivery. Newt Gingrich, though, a man who loves to claim the left is always playing the race card, pulled the race card. He claimed that this is the type of language that divides this country. He said also, "On behalf of both my wife, and on behalf of Karen Santorum and on behalf of Ann Romney and that is I think Robert De Niro is wrong. I think the country is ready for a new first lady and he doesn’t have to describe it in racial terms".
Newt Gingrich, the man who said that Spanish is the language of the ghetto, who said he would tell the NAACP to get off welfare, who call the President the "food stamp president", is talking of divisive language. Let that sit in your head a minute, and try not to get an aneurysm. He is not going to be the first of the right-wing yutzes to chime in. There will probably be a de Niro boycott or something. There will be a giant backlash, claiming the Left get to make jokes all the time, but when the Right do, there is a giant backlash.
I could get behind that argument, but for one thing. When the Left make jokes, for the most part, they are somewhat clever, save for Bill Maher's. When the Right make jokes, the go straight for the untouchables. Calling the president's mother a slut who f***ed a dog, the monkey/ape imagery, the witch doctor photo, calling a woman a slut and a prostitute for testifying on Capitol Hill...where is the cleverness in that? Repeating what people said back in 2008, but replacing "black" with "white"...kind of a chuckle. Saying the President's parents were African chimpanzees, and his health care plan involved him with a bone through his nose...Where do I even start? It doesn't help that the initial criticism comes from the man who is the poster boy for race- and gender-baiting offensive language. Get better writers, and maybe you won't face backlash for the most offensive jokes against your opponents. Just sayin'...
