Peggy Noonan is quite the humorist.

This is the reason many people don’t like ObamaCare. It’s also part of why people wind up making fun of the president at state fairs. (On that, everyone should breathe deep and remember, as the noted political philosopher Orson Welles once put it: “It’s the business of the American people to take the mickey out of the president.” It’s not only what we do, it’s what we should do. Welles was speaking on a talk show; it was the 1970s; he was talking about people making fun of some Republican president, Nixon or Ford. So what? They can take it. And they’re not kings. Let me suggest a classy Obama move that might go over well. From his Vineyard vacation spot he should have the press office issue a release saying his reaction to finding out a rodeo clown was rudely spoofing him, was, “So what?”

…HAHAHAHAHA! Good one!

Say he loves free speech, including inevitably derision directed at him…

…HAHAHAHAHA!

…and he does not wish for the Missouri state fair to fire the guy…

…HAHAHAHAHA!

…and hopes those politicians (unctuously, excessively, embarrassingly) damning the clown and the crowd would pipe down and relax. This would be graceful and nice, wouldn’t it?

…HAHAHAHAHA! Of course, Peggy knows full well that she’s making a funny:

He would never do it. He gives every sign of being a person who really believes he shouldn’t be made fun of, and if he is it’s probably racially toned, because why else would you make fun of him?

The truth of it is, Barack Obama enjoys an enviable position for a Democratic politician: people in this culture tend to be extra-cautious when it comes to making too-public, too-caricaturing fun of people who happen to have large amounts of melanin in their skin. In most cases, this is a combination of laudable shame about some of the less savory events in our history, and a genuine hesitance to offend; alas, when applied to Barack Obama, the practical result is that it’s given him a full-blown case of elitist privilege. And I think that Obama’s blissfully unaware about just how much he benefits from it. Then again, I have never really been impressed with this guy’s intellectual curiosity. I mean, I’m sure that he must have some; it’s just that Obama’s never been forced to work for (or at) anything, and dear God but does it show by now.

:pause:

They really and truly did go out and find a caricature of George W Bush to run in 2008, didn’t they? Although, speaking clinically: a real shame that they couldn’t find one that didn’t need lopsided majorities to get legislation passed.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

PS: Mind you… like so many other things about Barack Obama, this fortunate (for him) immunity that he enjoys is not particularly transferable. And it will be highly amusing to watch the eventual Democratic 2016 candidate react badly to discovering that.

*The ‘unconscious’ part is, as they say, a topic of some debate. Personally: I have a low opinion of the average cultural sophistication and self-awareness of Ivy-League public-policy academics who have never held real jobs as adults. Others are free to differ with me on that.