Jay Leno and Barack Obama

Last night I watched along with 8 million other people, President Obama appear on Jay Leno's Tonight show. I have to confess a bias toward Obama. I also like Jay Leno, as he is a dedicated motorcyclist/car guy who is probably living out every motorcyclists fantasy. To tell a few jokes at night on TV, then ride around southern California on the most classic and exotics bikes and cars you could imagine. It was amazing for me to see Obama and Leno together. For a moment, I was undecided about what I envied most about Jay Leno - all his motorcycles, or all the times he could talk to and joke with the famous people who are guests on his show.

By the way, Jay is one of those rare celebrities who can talk to anybody. He often rides his bike to motorcyclist hangouts on weekends (like the Rock Store in the picture), and just chats to strangers. It seems like nobody ever acts like a jerk when he's around. Unlike all other celebrities. Maybe the secret is the bikers, when they talk about bikes they do not appreciate paparazzi jumping around asking dumb in your face questions.

But now there are various news reports that Obama's visit to the Tonight show was a disaster. Apparently Obama decided to use this unscripted appearance to mock handicapped athletes. I listened to the whole thing twice, but I missed it, or did they censor it before it got on the air (maybe they had a 5 second delay).

I checked out one of the references on the BBC website - it was the pro-Republican National Review Online.

I generally don't like reading things on Republican news sources, I find basically a lot of propaganda of the sort that I disagree with (always a downer), and I also find it humourless (goes with being on a downer I guess.) and accompanied by a lot of yelling and threatening. But I decided to take one for the team and peek at it. At the end they summarize what Obama's next move will be "tripping up elderly nuns".

At some point during the 40 minute interview with Jay, Obama was joking about his dismal bowling score, and he mentioned his bowling was like the special Olympics. Yes, I heard that, but I not think "My God, he's just mocked the handicapped athletes who participate in the Special Olympics."

In my opinion, Obama was just poking fun at himself, which is called self-deprecating humour, the type of humour never used in propaganda. The only type of humour used in propaganda is called ridicule. There is only one right wing comic I can think of, Dennis Miller (who used to be on Saturday Night Live). Here is a pretty typical clip where I think there are multiple instances of ridicule.

But what made Obama's remark unfunny is that he is not mentally handicapped, so he has no right to refer to that group in a joke. Although I never thought it was ridicule, I did not think it was funny either.

I want to take every opportunity to enjoy Obama's time in the White House, and for me, no amount of Republican criticism can change my appreciation of that show. I'm not surprised even Jay Leno could call it one of the best nights of his life.