Hey, Did You Hear the One About Obama ...

I’m always amused when my hyper-sensitive liberal friends cringe at a joke involving race.  Cringing is how liberals show their racial manners.  It’s how they say, “I’m a good white person.  I don’t approve.”

Liberals are always showing how good they are when it comes to race.  That’s why they support affirmative action programs.  It’s their way of cleansing themselves of America’s historic racial guilt.  “You see,” they announce to the world, “I’m not one of the bad white people.  I’m not a racist like the many others who just happen to look like me.”  And let’s not pretend that a lot of white folks don’t feel guilty simply because they’re white.  After all, a lot of libs rightly or wrongly believe that black people see them as racist just because they’re white.  So supporting affirmative action – as long as they themselves or their children aren’t hurt by it, of course -- or refusing to laugh at jokes with black folks in the punchline, is a way to assuage their white liberal guilt, which, as we all know, has no limits.

And this brings us to Bill Maher, the white liberal comedian who hates political correctness almost as much as he hates white people in bib overalls from Mississippi. Maher made a funny on HBO the other night about Barack Obama.  But the joke wasn’t about Obama’s big ears or his addiction to teleprompters.  No, the joke was about Barack Obama ... not being ... black enough.  Here’s Maher’s joke:

“I thought when we elected a black president, we were going to get a black president. You know, this [BP oil spill] is where I want a real black president. I want him in a meeting with the BP CEOs, you know, where he lifts up his shirt where you can see the gun in his pants. That's -- (in black man voice) 'we've got a motherfu**ing problem here?' Shoot somebody in the foot.”

Obama playing the black thug.  Not bad.  I’m laughing.  And guess who else was laughing?  All the liberals in Maher’s Los Angeles audience.  You see, when a liberal like Maher tells a joke like that, it’s hip, it’s cool.  Only a hyper-sensitive nerd wouldn’t laugh.

Rule # 1:  Liberals can say things that conservatives can’t.

Imagine if Rush Limbaugh had told the same joke.  Imagine if Rush had told his listeners -- tongue in cheek --  that he was disappointed in Obama -- disappointed because our first black president wasn't acting black enough; disappointed because O didn't pull a weapon on whitey and pop a cap in his rear end.  Imagine if he said, jokingly, of course, "That's what a real black man would do!"  You think lefties would be laughing?  You know why not?  Because it’s not easy to laugh and scream “Racist!” at the same time?  But Maher says the same thing and they laugh their liberal asses off.

Rule# 2:  Liberals (like everyone else, only more so) have a great capacity for hypocrisy.

I don’t want Bill Maher or anyone else to stop telling jokes, and that includes good-natured jokes about black guys.  It’s no longer 1952 so we don’t need “watermelon” or “darkie”  jokes, but  jokes about a sophisticated, well-educated black president playing a street thug with the white boys from BP – that, I think falls into the category of, “Come on, it’s funny – it’s okay to laugh!”

Liberals are smart, open-minded and have a wonderful sense of humor.  I know this because my liberal friends keep telling me how smart, open-minded and funny they are.  So lighten up, my left-wing Homies.  Chill.   If it’s funny when Bill Maher says it, then it’s funny when Rush says it.  And when Limbaugh plays funny bits about Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson, feel free to laugh --  because we all know you’d laugh if Bill Maher (or Jon Stewart) did the same bit.   As Shecky Greene’s cousin Siggy Freud, the funnyman from Vienna once said, “Hey, sometimes a joke is just a joke.”

Rule #  3:  Be good to your waiters and waitresses because they’ve been good to you.  And drive carefully.  Especially if you came to the show in a car.”