THE COMEDY SEASON

IT'S HARD NOT TO LAUGH

Donald Trump is going to moderate a GOP political debate. That's not a joke from the Colbert Report, funny as it seems. What's going to be tough for The Donald is to make this episode of the seemingly endless string of debates more bizarre than the others. They could all have been written by Jon Stewart's team on The Daily Show, and I'm sure that has not been lost on Obama's team, which may be tempted to run a Comedy Central campaign.

If “The GOP's a joke” becomes their 2012 slogan we're in for a fall season that will have the country in stitches. And each day's news brings more material to the comedy writers who, I'm sure, are not sipping tea as they work. G.W. Bush's press secretary handed over a bunch of new stuff when he urged Republican campaigners to attack Obama as a flip-flopper. To make his point he listed items so obscure that even the party professionals were mystified. I presume most of those present knew that flip-flopping is both Gingrich and Romney's Achilles heel, and using those words only hurts them. And at that same Republican National Committee meeting, to which a Yahoo reporter was inadvertently invited, pollster Nicholas Thompson countered that the party should be wary of attacking Obama because of his “high personal approval rating,” which has risen to 49%.

And they're faced with the new Public Policy Polling's finding that were the election held this week Gingrich would get 42% of the popular vote to Obama's 50%. That does not mean that 2012 is a certain win for Obama, which is why I'm urging them to go for the laughs. So let's dig out our old Mort Saul caps and start writing. How about, “The funniest thing about Obama is his name. The funniest thing about Romney is how many of him there are.” Or, “Gingrich just got a powerful endorsement. Tiffany's is backing him 500,000 percent.”