Wit and Wisdom

"Such a perspective is entirely new in the White House, born perhaps of the same deconstructionist ethos that gave us 'The Simpsons' and The Onion—self-aware acts of ridicule that would have seemed wholly out of place in the age of 'All in the Family.' Our more recent presidents, reared in the age after the Great Depression and World War II, have tended to be deeply earnest types, class presidents and conventional insiders, the kind of men who affixed their flag pins to their lapels without a second thought. Parody, on the other hand, is an act of subversion, the province of the kid in the back row who refuses to grant the institution its inherent authority. In such moments of transgression, Obama seems inherently uncomfortable with the garish décor of the imperial presidency. With each self-mocking digression, he registers a small blow against the excessive reverence for the office that made possible, in some measure, the missteps of his predecessor."

Matt Bai in The New York Times ponders President Obama's sense of humor.