Disarming the GOP Memes

Yesterday I posted the video to Saturday night's White House Correspondents' Dinner and took the opportunity to watch them a second time. I thought the second time was better than the first in regards to both the President's and Jimmy Kimmel's performances.

But something struck me while watching the President. There were the dog eating jokes. A lot of dog eating jokes. Just when you think he'd move on, he'd come in with another one. For a bit, I thought it was too much. But watching it a second time, I realized that all the self deprecation was yet another tool to disarm some of the ridiculous right wing talking points and conspiracy theories that still resonate with the uninformed, misinformed and ignorant that plague our society.

The President's wink after he stating he was born in Hawaii, the GSA scandal cracks, Hillary Clinton's "drunk texting from Cartajena" joke, and the constant dog eating jokes, all designed to disarm the constant harping from the right wing on things that don't matter, or more serious issues that are being dealt with but are used to misplace the blame on the President.

Why this struck me the way it did was because I can't recall such self deprecation on the other side. Sure, there's that hilarious time President Bush was looking under his coffee table for nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, but that wasn't so much humorous as it was sad and insulting. Eating dog because it's part of the culture in Indonesia when you're eight years old is a little different than starting a war under false pretenses. An "Oops, my bad" joke in that situation is not at all funny. But I digress.

The point is, watching the idiots on Fox and Friends or Hannity make the off-handed dog eating joke now is only going to make them look childish.