Pining for a president who laughs at himself

I must admit, a decade ago, I did not think that George W. Bush would teach us something about wisdom.

Bush was then in his seventh year as president. Late- night TV hosts were having a field day with him ( just as they are with President Trump). And NBC’s Saturday Night Live, enjoying lofty ratings thanks to its Trump skits, used to regularly take Bush apart.

Will Ferrell, one of SNL’s big stars, did a biting parody of Bush as a good ol’ daddy’s boy, more interested in workouts than world affairs. It was the kind of portrayal a man could take personally. After all, here’s a comic making fun of your accent, your language, your intelligence — and getting big laughs for it. Ferrell even created a one- man play called You’re Welcome America: A Final Night with George W. Bush. It sold out on Broadway, was shown on HBO, and was turned into a DVD.

You’d think the real Bush would be upset. But that’s not the impression he gave on late- night TV this month, making the rounds for a new book of portraits he had painted.

When ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel asked Bush whether he ever got upset about Ferrell’s jabbing imitation, he quickly said, “No.”

He even told a story about playfully arguing with longtime SNL producer Lorne Michaels over who invented certain botched Bush terms such as “strategery” and “misunderestimate,” joking about who should get the credit.

Kimmel asked whether the parodies ever bothered him. “No.”

He asked if Bush watched much TV as president. “No.”

He asked whether Bush enjoyed the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, where the press and the president poke fun at each other.

“Yeah,” Bush said. “I love humor. And the best humor is when you make fun of yourself.”

Kimmel laughed. “Tell that to the president.” Indeed. When you compare the Bush and Trump approaches, you find yourself pining for the 2000s. This is not about Trump’s politics. This is simply about the ability to laugh at yourself.

Trump seems to view that as weakness. Instead of not watching TV, he apparently watches it incessantly. Instead of rolling with parody punches, he fires back. Instead of finding impressions funny or harmless, he tweets about how awful they are. And he won’t be attending the correspondents’ dinner. Not a surprise. Self- deprecation, a cornerstone of that event, is not something he practices much.

No one likes to be criticized or parodied, but it clearly comes with the job. And if you think comics skewer Trump worse than they did “George W,” you have a short memory. It just feels that way because Trump takes things so personally. He responds to insults. He mocks back. He even blamed the Oscars snafu on the show being obsessed with him.

How much easier Trump’s life would be if he embraced the Bush philosophy: Don’t really watch it, don’t really get bothered by it, and some of it, to be honest, can be funny.