It's the TV satirists as much as the political pundits that are helping shape public opinion in the US election, writes Davin O'Dwyer
LAUGHING AT politicians is a large part of our relationship with them - it makes the fact that they have so much control over our lives that bit easier to bear. Given the momentous events of the past few weeks, and the ominous budget looming on Tuesday, it wouldn't hurt to have somebody able to make some comic capital out of the situation, but we're not exactly blessed with an abundance of political satirists.
It wasn't always the case. Nothing has replaced Hall's Pictorial Weekly, which ran from 1970 to 1982, and which is widely considered to have contributed to the fall of Liam Cosgrave's Fine Gael/Labour coalition in 1977. However, Frank Kelly, one of the show's stars, has expressed doubts that it played such a role. "I always set myself against believing that the programme had brought a government down, because you can slip into the mode of feeling a bit God-like. That's a very dangerous pitfall," he said in a Hot Press interview in 1997.
In the current US election campaign, the role of political comedians is generating almost as much attention as the politicians themselves, and not merely as light relief from the grim financial news. Every twist and turn, gaffe and attack, is being refracted not just through the "punditocracy" on cable news channels, but through the punchlines of the satirists and the late-night chat show hosts.
Most obviously, Tina Fey's Saturday Night Live reincarnation of Sarah Palin - with all the folksy Fargo-isms and incomprehensible non sequiturs - has incontrovertibly undermined the Alaska governor. The conflation of candidate and caricature is remarkable and illustrates both the power of satire, and how little it is understood as a factor in shaping public opinion. When the stakes are as high as this year, any factor in the equation can assume massive importance.
What is undeniable is that the successful satire is almost entirely coming from the left. A high-profile Hollywood conservative satire called An American Carol was released in cinemas across the US last week, and failed miserably with both critics and audiences. This is partly because its target is agitprop film-maker Michael Moore, whose days as torch bearer for the angry left have faded in direct proportion to President Bush becoming lamer and more duck-like, but also because satire and the conservative right are uncomfortable bedfellows.
In the words of libertarian journalist David Weigel, "Political comedy mocks authority. Conservative comedy in the Age of Bush venerates authority." So the right makes do with Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly and Ann Coulter, who can all be quite funny, but usually unintentionally.
Not only are the satirists predominantly on the left, they are also offering some of the most insightful analysis of the campaign. The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report, both on Comedy Central, so successfully lampoon the format of the cable news programmes, from the inane location reports to the pugnacious, self-righteous pundits, that in practice they compete with, as well as comment on, the programmes they satirise, such as Fox's The O'Reilly Factor or CNN's The Situation Room.
It is hardly surprising that Stewart and Stephen Colbert are seen as having a real impact on the race. Colbert's searing speech at the 2006 White House Correspondents' Association dinner, delivered just feet from President Bush, is considered a key moment in that year's midterm elections. When you include the work of writers and comedians such as Bill Maher, Garry Trudeau's Doonesbury comic strip, and the increasingly pointed gags from late-night talk show hosts such as David Letterman and Jay Leno, and the capacity for satire to be a significant factor in the election is apparent.
Watching these comedians at work forcefully reminds us of the paucity of effective satirists in this country. Hall's Pictorial Weekly set the bar, but was matched by the greatly missed Scrap Saturday, in which Dermot Morgan and Gerard Stembridge did more damage to Charles Haughey's reputation than the opposition ever managed, forever casting him as an Irish Mr Burns, with PJ Mara as his obsequious Waylon Smithers.
IT MUST GO DOWN AS YET another instance of Bertie Ahern's good fortune that Mario Rosenstock's impersonation on Today FM's Gift Grub painted him as hapless, funny and endearing. Other attempts at Irish political comedy, such as the toothless and witless Bull Island, are best forgotten.
But even the most effective satirists are often quick to downplay their ability to influence public opinion, as Frank Kelly's scepticism demonstrates. This concern reflects an understandable reluctance to become a surrogate opposition, but also a crucial denial of responsibility.
As Jon Stewart famously quipped to conservative pundit Tucker Carlson on CNN, when Carlson took Stewart to task for asking John Kerry soft questions during the 2004 election: "If you want to compare your show to a comedy show, you're more than welcome to. I didn't realise . . . that the news organisations look to Comedy Central for their cues on integrity."
Remaining the court jester who speaks truth to power, therefore, depends upon not being taken seriously, even as their jokes shape public sentiment. Whatever the result in this year's US presidential election, it seems safe to say that comedians will no longer be able to argue their own irrelevance.