Another Obama joke bombs

I was never a paid-up admirer of either Bubba or Dubya. But for all their faults they did at least have enough charm and wit to be a little self-deprecating every now and again, and one could easily imagine having a good time with either of them, provided one steered clear of politics.

But with Obama? Where does one even begin?

"The Jonas Brothers are here; they're out there somewhere. Sasha and Malia are huge fans. But boys, don't get any ideas. I have two words for you, 'predator drones.' You will never see it coming."

OK, the joke's not even remotely funny. Unless of course you get the context, which Alex Pareene duly supplies, fulminating on Salon:

Hah! It's funny because predator drone strikes in Pakistan have killed literally hundreds of completely innocent civilians, and now the president is evincing a casual disregard for those lives he is responsible for ending by making a lighthearted joke about killing famous young celebrities for the crime of attempting to sleep with his young daughters.

In fact that's probably the worst thing about this joke. It's funny only once you realise how totally inappropriate it is - suggesting that members of a hot boy-band might be paedophiles and making light of all the women and children you've maimed and killed in Pakistan. And what's even more funny is that it's funny in a South Park-"Oh my God, they killed Kenny!"-sort of way, rather than funny in the way the feckless boob who came up with it thought it would be!

Yes, I know Obama has "previous" when it comes to unintentionally cruel and inappropriate "humour". So whom to blame? Could it just be down to his handlers and his autocue. Unless it's written down for him, after all, Obama has significant problems even stringing a sentence together. But there's more to it than that.

Personally I don't know what it is, but it may have something to do with the way no one is allowed to make jokes about him. No comedian in the world wants to be tarred with the 'r'-word. The result is simply that Obama lives in an ivory tower (or a White House, at any rate) that is totally cut off from how ordinary people think and feel.

The difference between him and Clinton and the Bushes is that Obama now doesn't even feel the need to pretend.