Editorials

Tom Lehrer, the ideological mentor of my teenage years in the fifties, said that political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. He himself stopped performing in 1967, a long time ago now, and yet he is still regarded as a fountainhead of political wisdom by young people of a certain type who were raised in homes with old Tom Lehrer songbooks on the piano. The Onion, one of his spiritual descendants, interviewed him in May on the occasion of the release of his boxed CD set, which has been selling well.  

Political satirists like Molly Ivins and Al Franken are doing fine these days, even though political reality at first blush would appear to be beyond satire. What fun can we make of a California electorate which voted in record numbers for the man my 89-year-old mother calls “Governor Groper”? Television has been a lost cause for years now, but what can be said about a print press which seems to have converted itself into People Magazine? Acres of pages in the Hearst Comical which formerly contained at least a modicum of news now are devoted primarily to displaying the very prominent teeth of the Schwarzenegger/Kennedy/Shriver family.  

On the other hand, it’s hard to engage in sober political commentary about why voters appear to despise William Jefferson Clinton for a bit of sex play with a willing partner, but cheerfully elect Arnold Schwarzenegger although he confesses to manhandling unwilling victims. The answer in this case may be the difference between California and Rest-of-World—perhaps Californians really do care more about their auto licenses than about anything else, including celebrity sex.  

One positive result of the election coverage is that it has just about put an end to the Beserkely stories which were formerly a media staple. It’s hard to make fun of Berkeley for debating the Middle East when it’s one of the few locations which emphatically rejected the recall circus. (We don’t really have the precinct returns to confirm that, but we know it’s got to be true.) The East Bay’s tackiest entertainment weekly, owned by a Phoenix media conglomerate, tried a Beserkely cover story in the middle of the recall campaign, but it lacked credibility coming from the publication which financed Gary Coleman. 

Berkeley types are now saying in hushed tones that Schwarzenegger is an Actual Fascist. He might be, but the end of the world has been predicted after so many elections in my lifetime that I’ve given up listening for the final trumpet. If the state of California survived Ronald Reagan, we’ll survive the Schwarzenegger regime (or the regime of whoever will really be calling the shots in Sacramento.) “Springtime for Hitler” was probably a funny show, and at least this Arnie doesn’t have an army.  

Unlike the Wolfowitz regime in Washington, the one satirists are starting to have trouble making jokes about... It’s one thing to make fun of George W. Bush, but as it becomes increasingly clear that poor dumb Dubya isn’t running the show, it gets harder to laugh about his cronies. Ed Holmes’ career as the San Francisco Mime Troupe’s comic Dick Cheney may be at an end.  

The U.S. Government, with its unlimited ability to borrow against the resources of future generations, can do a great deal of harm in a short time, and the people in charge seem to be doing it. All of us in Berkeley who are afflicted with the conviction that we’re in charge of saving the world have our work cut out for us as we look toward the next federal election. We might as well forget about California for while. It’s time, as they say, to Move On. 

A story from Berkeley High which is now making the rounds shows that Berkeleyans in the next generation are ready to do their part, and with a bit of humor too. A vigilante from out of town has lately insisted that American and California flags be prominently displayed on our high school campus. The morning after the election, thanks to someone who hasn’t stepped forward to take the credit, those flags were at half mast. 

Becky O’Malley is executive editor of the Daily Planet.