Funniest line from Obama at the Al Smith dinner

McCain was pretty good, but Obama was frickin' awesome. I simply skipped SNL's Thursday show and watched Obama live on Larry King and was chortling throughout.

Best bit (paraphrasing): John's campaign is now accusing me of having fathered two African-American kids in wedlock.

Comments

[Robert Langland]

My kids, who are not really locked on a party, saw it the other way. They actually liked seeing a more relaxed and better performing McCain. It went pretty far in increasing his acceptability.

[Pierce Wetter]

Obama didn't say it was John, he said it was the media.

[Barry Campbell]

To be precise, Fox News (in the joke)

[Shawn in Tokyo]

I also thought McCain was both the funniest and classiest. I don't think Obama expected McCain to be that classy at the end, and then had to wing his own comments about McCain. Anyway, that was a very tough act to follow!

[Kevin from Minneapolis]

I thought McCain was much better. Obama looked like he was seeing the speech for the first time. I also found his constantly looking down at his notes and then back up at the crowd to be incredibly annoying. The man cannot speak without a teleprompter. But really, it's a charity dinner, so who cares.

I also gave that line from Obama a major eye raise. It struck me as much more than a joke. It is a sad admission of the singular biggest problem facing the African-American community in America. Think about this joke. In order for it to work, the audience has to have a pre-existing knowledge of the prevalance of out-of-wedlock, fatherless families among African-Americans. Sad.

I don't want Barack Obama to be our next president, period. But I do hold out hope that, if he is, he will be able to use his position as the first African-American president to get the black community to seriously address - AND SOLVE - this problem that is eating their community from the inside out.

[Lexington Green]

McCain was more relaxed, had better material and better comic timing, more willing to be self-deprecating, as well as being more gracious to his hosts and even to Obama.

Obama came off as uncomfortable with the format, seemed nervous, laughed at his own jokes and generally seemed not to be having a good time.

Surprised you found Obama to be awesome in this performance.

[Ken Ballweg]

McCain was better only in the sense we didn't expect if from him, though anyone who has watched the old John knows he has a wonderful ability to project a self deprecating sense of humor. There is a reason the very liberal Jon Stewart had him on so much; or did before Rove took McCain's sense of humor away for the duration of the campaign.

Kevin the black children joke is an insiders nod to what Bush did to McCain in South Carolina; which makes it doubly funny. The humor certainly does not come from the source you assume, if it did, it wouldn't be funny. The sad part is that you would interpret it that way.

[Tom Barnett]

Ah well, we all see what we want to see, I guess.

But correct on Fox News. My mistake in citing McCain, and yes, it was that much funnier for the job Rove did on McCain in 2000 (speaking as a parent of a "mystery love child" of asian origin, I got the joke from the start, so spare me your sadness please).

I found Obama's reading, and laughing at his own text, to be rather endearing. We tend to forget what a careful line he needs to tow, but that's where we locate his equanimity and caution, which I like a lot.

I didn't see but only heard (POTUS XM) McCain, who is always great on timing and self-deprecation (that's where the sarcasm lives, and I say that from personal experience), although I liked best Obama's attempt to clear up many myths about himself (and there he looked like he was having too much fun, laughing like a kid at his own jokes).

What this exchange reminds me of is that McCain has a great personality for the Senate, while Obama really doesn't. That's why I never found their "senate records" that interesting. I don't think the good Senate personality makes for a good president (JFK was also a lackluster senator). I think McCain is a great senator, but I think he'd be a disaster at the presidency--especially right now.

To me, in the end, a lot of Americans pick the guy they think they can live with for four years. That's how W won twice over snippy Gore and aloof Kerry. I look at Obama and I think I'd be fine with him for four years. I look at McCain and I see three wars in the first term, with me dreaming of the day he leaves office.

Been there, done that.

Enough of Kirk, bring on the Spock.