The Wall Street Journal’s Political Diary today takes up the case of political figures ambushed by Borat — finally, an “I Fell For Borat!” for the DC crowd? Alas, not. John Fund just wants to complain:
It won’t surprise anyone who’s noticed how much liberals love to laugh at the humiliation of average Americans that all the Washington-related victims of Mr. Cohen’s stunts appear to be conservative Republicans. For his first victim, Mr. Cohen taped a speech by GOP Rep. Chip Pickering of Mississippi at an annual Pentecostal revival to illustrate the links between religion and politics in America. In his encounter with former presidential candidate Alan Keyes, Mr. Cohen’s character Borat gushes over the fact that he has finally met “a genuine chocolate-face.” But the most over-the-top of Borat’s pranks on politicians is played on former Rep. Bob Barr of Georgia, who admittedly often does appear to be humor impaired. In the movie, Borat offers Mr. Barr some cheese, only to inform him that it’s actually made from the breast milk of one of his relatives. I suppose it’s funny in a gross-out way, but I wonder how uproariously the audiences who are enjoying the Borat film in Manhattan and Hollywood would laugh if the victim were Mr. Barr’s equal in the humor-deprived category, Senator John Kerry, the man most of them backed for president in 2004.
Okay, it’s a fair point that Borat (and Ali G, and Bruno) has, to my memory, targeted Republicans for ridicule exclusively, even when he’s just looking for a standard-issue stuffed shirt to make uncomfortable. The joke on Barr would have played just as well on any Washington figure — maybe even someone still holding elective office.
However, at the risk of pulling a reverse Pauline Kael, I don’t know a single Democrat who thinks John Kerry should run for president in 2008, and most of them supported Kerry in 2004 only because he was the party’s nominee. Laughing at John Kerry would be nothing short of cathartic.
So Cohen and Fund have at least this much in common: They could choose their targets a little more judiciously.
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