How long will Biden stay immune to satire?
27-year-old trying to beat his career’s 1st rough patch
There’s a difference between saying something can’t be done and recognizing that you can’t do it. For instance, I can’t run a marathon — at least not without some profound lifestyle changes. But that doesn’t mean marathons can’t be run. Happens all the time, just not by me.
Likewise, when you hear people say it’s impossible to make fun of Joe Biden, what they’re really saying is that they can’t (or won’t) do it, or that they don’t want anyone else to try.
Until recently, people mocked “ol’ Joe” routinely, including yours truly. In the Senate, an institution famous for its longwinded blowhards, Sen. Biden stood out from the crowd. His mouth was like a car with iffy brakes and a detached steering wheel.
He’d start asking a question, and 15 minutes later he’d be in a treetop wondering how he got there. He abused the word “literally” so much, if there was a lexicological equivalent of child services, it would revoke custody.
The satirical website The Onion paid the rent mocking Mr. Biden. I liked its 2010 story “Biden Receives Lifetime Ban from Dave and Busters,” but its 2009 exposé “Shirtless Biden Washes Trans Am In White House Driveway” went so viral that some folks at Fark.com tried to raise money to actually buy him a Trans Am. (Ethics rules precluded it.)
When Mr. Biden told CBS’s Katie Couric in 2008 that FDR went on TV to reassure the public after the 1929 stock market crash, people had fun at his expense, given that (a) FDR wasn’t president in 1929, and (b) TV wasn’t really a thing in 1929.
Things, including Mr. Biden, have changed. He isn’t nearly as loquacious as he once was. His hair plugs — a source of great ridicule back in the day — have settled in. He’s older, mellower, more grandfatherly and, I will be the first to concede, more likable.
Perhaps most importantly, after four years of a Donald Trump presidency, a boring old guy in the Oval Office is very reassuring to a lot of people.
So it’s not surprising that journalists and comedians alike have taken to claiming Mr. Biden is unmockable. Author Richard Zoglin writes in the Washington Post that, so far, Mr. Biden has proved “impregnable” to the impressionists and comedy writers at “Saturday Night Live.” New York Times reporter Adam Nagourney recently noted: “It’s hard to parody Biden. He’s not polarizing and people tend to find him likable. His ticks aren’t that interesting.”
There’s some truth here. Moreover,
Mr. Biden hasn’t been president long enough for his caricaturable vulnerabilities to emerge, and the White House is in no rush to change that, which helps explain why he hasn’t held a press conference yet.
His conspicuous senior moments — he recently forgot the name of his own secretary of defense — could be caricatured, and some try, but most efforts seem too desperately partisan and just a little too cruel.
Even the right-wing marketplace proves the point. At CPAC this year, a MAGA merchandise vendor told the Washington Post, “I can’t give the Biden stuff away.”
This also helps explain why Republicans would rather focus on culture-war spats over Dr. Seuss than confront Mr. Biden directly.
Still, it’s worth noting we’ve seen this kind of thing before. Jim Downey, a longtime political comedy specialist at “SNL,” famously said in 2014 that President Obama was impregnable too. “It’s like being a rock climber looking up at a thousand-foot-high face of solid obsidian, polished and oiled,” Downey said. “There’s not a single thing to grab onto — certainly not a flaw or hook that you can caricature.”
Maya Rudolph of “SNL,” tasked with playing Vice President Kamala Harris, said in October that it was her “civic duty” to get the Biden-Harris ticket elected: “I gotta get there and do whatever I need to do to make sure that she wins this election, and also that I do a good job.” More recently, after winning an Emmy for her portrayal, Rudolph said of Harris, “I just wanna do her proud.” Not exactly a Menckenesque sentiment.
Journalism and comedy aren’t the same thing, but they do overlap. Both require skepticism about the way things are, about people in power, about the binding power of conventional wisdom. One reason people voted for Trump in the first place was the perception that our self-appointed cultural superiors had such an obvious double standard when it came to who deserved mockery — and who didn’t.
You’d think the people most tormented by Trump’s presidency would have learned some lessons from that.
YANGON, Myanmar — Myanmar’s ruling junta has declared martial law in a wide area of the country’s largest city, as security forces killed dozens of protesters over the weekend in an increasingly lethal crackdown on resistance to last month’s military coup.
The United Nations said at least 138 peaceful protesters have been killed in Myanmar since the Feb. 1 military coup, including at least 56 killed over the weekend.
The developments were the latest setback to hopes of resolving the crisis that started with the military’s seizure of power that ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi. A grassroots movement has sprung up across the country to challenge the takeover with almost daily protests that the army has tried to crush with deadly violence
State broadcaster MRTV said Monday that the Yangon townships of North Dagon, South Dagon, Dagon Seikkan and North Okkalapa have been put under martial law. That was in addition to two others — Hlaing Thar Yar and neighboring Shwepyitha — announced late Sunday.
More violence was reported around the country Monday, with at least eight protesters in four cities or towns killed, according to the independent broadcaster and news service Democratic Voice of Burma.
Photos and videos posted on social media showed long convoys of trucks entering Yangon.
At least 38 people were killed Sunday, the majority in the Hlaing Thar Yar area of Yangon, and 18 were killed Saturday, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said. The total includes women and children, according to the figures from the U.N. human rights office.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres “strongly condemns this ongoing violence against peaceful protesters and the continuing violation of the fundamental human rights of the people of Myanmar,” Dujarric said.
The U.N. chief renewed his call on the international community, including regional countries, “to come together in solidarity with the people of Myanmar and their democratic aspirations,” the spokesman said.
Earlier Monday, U.N. Special Envoy on Myanmar Christine Schraner Burgener earlier condemned the “continuing bloodshed,” which has frustrated calls from the Security Council and other parties for restraint and dialogue.
“The ongoing brutality, including against medical personnel and destruction of public infrastructure, severely undermines any prospects for peace and stability,” she said.
Complicating efforts to organize new protests, as well as media coverage of the crisis, cellphone internet service has been cut, although access is still available through fixed broadband connections.
Mobile data service had been used to stream live video coverage of protests, often showing security forces attacking demonstrators. It had been turned off only from 1 a.m. to 9 a.m. for several weeks, with no official explanation.
PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — Justin Thomas was 16 years old when he made his PGA Tour debut with a 65 in the Wyndham Championship, the start of a career that has been filled with big moments and very little trouble.
The son and grandson of PGA professionals, he won the PGA Championship for his first major at 24. He reached No. 1 in the world. He won a FedEx Cup title. He had blue-chip sponsors. And he ended last year playing with his father, Mike, as they won the PNC Championship.
A new year of hope brought turmoil he never imagined and a test unlike anything he ever found on a golf course.
“I’ve had stuff happen in my life I never thought I’d have happen,” Thomas said Sunday evening after he added another big moment to a young career already filled with them by winning The Players Championship.
“I had to figure it out and had to get over it,” he said. “If I wanted to throw a pity party for myself or feel sorry for myself, there’s no reason to show up, and I can stay home until I feel like I’m ready . ... It tested me mentally, physically, emotionally. And I’m very proud of myself for getting it done.”
Coming off two missed cuts in four starts since his world felt like it was crashing in around him, Thomas was outside the cut line with nine holes to play on Friday when he made four birdies. From there, he matched the lowest final 36-hole score (64-68) at the treacherous TPC Sawgrass for a one-shot victory over Lee Westwood.
The ball striking was so sublime that Thomas, who rallied from three shots behind with a 4-under 68, was on the verge of becoming the first winner to hit every green in the final round. He hit the fringe on the final hole.
Thomas choked up thinking about his grandfather, Paul, who died last month. Mike Thomas broke down thinking about the toll the last few months have taken on his son.
“I told him today when it was over that looked like a round of the old Justin Thomas,” the father said.
Winning doesn’t take care of everything, but it doesn’t hurt. Thomas needed this one. He was in contention at Kapalua on the weekend when he missed a short par putt and muttered an anti-gay slur under his breath that was barely audible on the hot mic and much louder on social media. After two days of owning the mistake and apologizing in interviews, his clothing sponsor dropped him. Another one publicly reprimanded him.
Thomas missed the cut in Abu Dhabi and was in the mix at the Phoenix Open when he received word before the final round his grandfather had died. He tied for 13th and sobbed after his round.
“The hardest round I’ve ever played,” Thomas said.
He missed the cut at Riviera as well.
Thomas sought professional help and was not embarrassed to admit it.
His head was in the right place over the weekend, and so was his game. It was a timely victory, not so much because the Masters is around the corner but because he needed to put the first rough patch in his career behind him.