Making fun of Dick Cheney is too easy right now, so I will resist the urge. I watched CNN yesterday and the question they wanted to ask was, “Has the Vice President become a liability to the administration?” I think the answer is, no, but he has become an invaluable asset to the nation’s comedians and late night talk show hosts.

Indeed, this shooting snafu is so redolent of comedy on its own that, as Annie rightly notes, there is no point in the professional joke-meisters milking it. That is why John Stewart and the Daily Show have been, hands down, the funniest ones on this topic. For two nights in a row, they have mined the comedy not by making jokes, but rather by basking in the inherent humor. Last night Stewart showed a clip of a reporter asking Scott McClellan, “When did the president know Cheney was the shooter?” and then, instead of a wise crack, Stewart just took out a tea set and enjoyed a quiet moment, letting the humor in the question ferment on its own. Like Miles Davis, who let the spaces between the notes be as much a part of the music as the notes themselves, Stewart was almost Zen-like in letting less be more. He even opened the show by noting that with Harry Wittington having suffered a heart attack, the story had to be downgraded from “hilarious” to, “Still funny, but, mmm, maybe a little sad.”

But don’t take my word for it. Yesterday’s show isn’t up yet, but go here and scroll down to the thumbnails in the middle of the page representing video segments. Then click on “#2 With a Bullet,” and watch the clip from Monday’s show.

Labels: The politics