Jeff Greenfield - I was joking about Obama dressing like Ahmadinejad

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/12/12/greenfield.obama/index.html

"Humor is the nitroglycerin of politics," a political analyst wrote long ago. "Very powerful, but if it's not handled carefully, it can explode in your face."

<snip>

A piece I did for "The Situation Room" -- a piece I thought an obvious, patently absurd parody of muddled political thinking -- engendered howls of outrage from elements of the blogosphere, where it was assumed I actually meant to tie Sen. Barack Obama with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. And therein lies a tale.

My starting point was the way Obama prefers to dress: a jacket, collared shirt, no tie -- a kind of "business casual" look.

No, actually my starting point was the hysteria that surrounded the Illinois senator's trip to New Hampshire over the weekend, the kind of hysteria that the political community, faced with a year when few people vote for anything, habitually displays.

<snip>

"You know," my wife said when she saw the piece, "I wonder if there are people who might think you were serious."

Hey CNN - joking again?

got called out on his remarks; I recall some DUers being outraged.

He just got caught doing it this time--meaning someone with some importance called him on it.

Now he lamely tries to 'explain' that it was humor.

Feh.

Up to that point, they are "journalists":puke:

and beyond that, just STFU.

It's getting tiresome.

Considering the out-and-out loony shit being spewed by CNN over the last dozen years, perhaps you should have thought twice -- make that three times -- before cracking your little jokes. In the past dozen or so years, CNN has seriously reported on candidates wearing earth tones, baseless accusations of terrorist sympathy, be so scared you wet your pants stories about bogus terror alerts, buy plastic sheeting and duct tape to guard against a chemical attack, and so on and so forth.

So your little bon mots comparing a United States Senator to the out of his mind president of Iran didn't set well with a couple of people, huh? With CNN's track record, why in the world would you think everyone else would be in on your little joke?

Putz.

Ask John Kerry.

I thought Greenfield leaned left but I guess I was suckered.

when's your "Obama's a meterosexual" coming out?

"Talking Point Memo," the home of Joshua Micah Marshall, pronounced the observation "weird." "The Daily Howler" saw it as part of the same media instinct that ridiculed Al Gore for his "earth tones" clothing choices back in 2000. The Columbia Journalism Review Web site weighed in with "character assassination." (It acknowledged that the effort might have been a weak attempt at humor).

That bold line is it in a nutshell, Mr. Greenfield. Your "parody" wasn't parody at all. It has actually happened to other good men who've tried to break through the media. That is why so many of us (me included) took it as serious. It happens. The GOP has done it to dem candidates for years, to tremendous effect. How many righties decry everything Hillary does with smirking "It takes a village" jokes? How many Gore-as-tree jokes have we endured? The problem, Jeff, is that parody has to actually be parody to work. Yours was just too real, and not at all implausible.

Perhaps you should sit and have a talk with you news directors and producers about that, eh?

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A couple of weeks ago on Hardball - note how CNN is running with it. Keep calling them on it and don't let them get away with it.

Jeff may have thought he was being funny, but this stuff is red meat to freepers and the 'less informed' among us. They take shit like this seriously. They really think that the sound of his name or the cut of his suit must have some meaning.

Face it, Jeff...you were ridiculing John Kerry several weeks ago for a botched attempt at humor by the humorless.

Join the club. Stick to your day job.

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"Some of my best friends are negroes"

That ratbastard needs to give up his life in the media

in its blatant sneering at Obama. Greenfield was smarmy and Wolfie was appreciative of his fine work.

For example, did you ever notice how Greenfield has the same jowly expression as Franco?



...or that he wears ties, just like Hitler did?



and that he's Jewish, just like David Berkowitz?



But hahahahaha! We're only KIDDING, Jeffy! It's a real fucking knee-slapper, isn't it?