"Dying is easy, comedy is hard." - Sir Donald Wolfit

The New York Times is reporting that humor is having a difficult time gaining traction with Barack Obama. On the heels of the New Yorker flap (covered by David Knowles here, and by me here and here), the Times examined the political humor landscape, and found it curiously Obama-free.

Why? The reason cited by most of those involved in the shows is that a fundamental factor is so far missing in Mr. Obama: There is no comedic "take" on him, nothing easy to turn to for an easy laugh, like allegations of Bill Clinton's womanizing, or President Bush's goofy bumbling or Al Gore's robotic persona.

"The thing is, he's not buffoonish in any way," said Mike Barry, who started writing political jokes for Johnny Carson's monologues in the waning days of the Johnson administration and has lambasted every presidential candidate since, most recently for Mr. Letterman. "He's not a comical figure," Mr. Barry said.

Humor is sort of a hobby of mine, so my first reaction was, "C'mon, these guys are just lazy. You can make a joke out of anything."

I did a quickie Google of Barack Obama Humor, to see what was out there. What I found will amaze you...

This week's cover of The New Yorker magazine portrays Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, standing in the Oval Office after winning the presidential election. Of course, that vision alone is enough to get some people worked up. But the illustrator, Barry Blitt, has pulled out all the stops in his portrayal of the would-be first couple. Barack wears a turban and tribal Muslim attire. His wife, who has combed out her afro, wears a semi-automatic rifle on her back and gives her husband a "terrorist fist-jab" beneath a painting of Osama bin Laden that hangs above a fireplace aflame with the American flag.

In short, the cartoonist is capturing the essence of the right-wing's Obama nightmare/wet-dream. To my mind, it's a brilliant piece of satire, precisely because it exposes how laughably transparent many Americans are in their Obamaphobia. But not everyone agrees, of course, including the Obama campaign. Via ABC's Jake Tapper:

Said Obama spox Bill Burton: "The New Yorker may think, as one of their staff explained to us, that their cover is a satirical lampoon of the caricature Senator Obama's right-wing critics have tried to create. But most readers will see it as tasteless and offensive. And we agree.

Knowing the liberal politics of the magazine, I believe the magazine's staff when they say the illustration is meant ironically, as a parody of the caricature some conservatives (and some supporters of Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y.) are painting of the Obamas..."

And (via Politico) the McCain campaign is also offended:

McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds quickly e-mailed: "We completely agree with the Obama campaign, it's tasteless and offensive."

Does Burton have a point? Sure. This image will no doubt become an e-mail-forwarded classic. To his enemies, the cover will represent not a joke, but the ultimate "I told you so!" Essentially, then, the argument against the cover is that it's too subtle for stupid people to understand. Thus, The New Yorker should lower its intellectual standards so that the basest among us (including those that the cartoon is lampooning) don't get the wrong idea.

To my mind, however, the cover art helps Obama more than it hurts him because A) it is funny, and B) it confronts the outlandish perceptions that many have Americans have of Obama head on. The image won't convert anybody into thinking Obama is a terrorist, it simply exposes the prejudices that already exist. Besides, it's good practice for when the real life Obamas take over residence in the White House. After all, an American president is perhaps the single most popular subject for cartoonists in the world.