McCain's humor often backfires

Ben Smith
Thu Jul 17, 5:34 AM ET



Ever hear that joke about waterboarding? How about the one about killing Iranians? And why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly?

If you aren't familiar with those witty japes, then you've missed out on John McCain's lighter side. Rooted in a time before there was political correctness, and before there was the "South Park" backlash against political correctness, McCain's wisecracking persona is cutting at times, self-deprecating at others, and always amused by the political process swirling around him. Even in his pursuit of the White House, the candidate has — sometimes to the dismay of his handlers — managed to keep his sense of humor.

As he campaigns through the densest media thicket in American history, it's become clear that McCain hasn't acquired the layer of polish that produced, for instance, Ronald Reagan's gentle, oft-repeated jokes and Bill Clinton's colorful, folksy yarns.

McCain's humor, by contrast, makes him the political counterpart of the radio host Don Imus (whom he has defended): It's sharp, unrehearsed and, at times, way, way over the line. This cycle, he's drawn winces, and worse, for everything from a joking reference to domestic violence to a now-notorious little ditty about bombing Iran. Earlier in his political career, the Arizona press reported that he'd cracked a rape joke that would now probably end any politician's career, a joke his aides then and now say he doesn't recall making.

To McCain's friends and supporters, the humor is a mark of his authenticity. To his detractors, some of the jokes are offensive and out of touch with contemporary mores. What's undeniable, though, is that the humor, with its political risks and, to some, its charm, is intrinsic to John McCain. He is a man of a certain generation, with a machismo forged from his experience as a Navy pilot and an aviator, a candidate who is more comfortable in his own skin than with a teleprompter.

"If you know the difference between a Navy and an Air Force pilot, you get some of this — he's a Navy pilot," said former Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey. "He has a healthy irreverence for the stuffy, politically correct, 'You can't say that, You can't say that.'"

Irreverence in the abstract is one thing. But McCain's specific jokes can be harder for some to stomach. Liberal bloggers have recently revived what is by far the most offensive of McCain's reported jokes, one that his aides say he doesn't recall telling, but which was reported in the Tucson Citizen, an Arizona paper, during his 1986 Senate campaign:

"Did you hear the one about the woman who is attacked on the street by a gorilla, beaten senseless, raped repeatedly and left to die? When she finally regains consciousness and tries to speak, her doctor leans over to hear her sigh contently and to feebly ask, 'Where is that marvelous ape?'"

His spokeswoman said at the time he didn't recall telling the joke, something his current spokesman, Brian Rogers, reiterated to Politico.

The president of the National Organization for Women, Kim Gandy, however, suggested that a series of McCain jokes about women, the rest uncontested by the campaign, suggest a serious lack of respect.



"Some people can't tell the difference between a joke that is really off color and one that is off-the-charts offensive, and clearly some of John McCain's 'jokes' fall into that category," she said.

Outside the contested rape joke, the most notorious of McCain's gags about women's looks came in 1998, when Chelsea Clinton was 18.

"Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly?" he asked guests at a Senate Republican fundraiser. "Because her father is Janet Reno."

McCain's other jokes don't induce cringes quite as widespread, but Gandy said they were still likely to alienate women.

"The French remind me a little bit of an aging actress of the 1940s who is still trying to dine out on her looks but doesn't have the face for it," McCain told Fox News a few years ago.

And earlier this year, McCain responded to a question with the line, "And I stopped beating my wife just a couple of weeks ago," provoking a round of tut-tutting for his reference to the old classic example of a leading question.

Women are far from his only target. Another favorite has been the elderly. He has recalled groveling for forgiveness when, during his 1986 campaign, he referred to a retirement community called "Leisure World" as "Seizure World."

In 1999, in the course of apologizing for his joke about Clinton — which he called "insensitive and stupid and cruel" — he recalled for reporters another bad joke: ''I said, 'The nice thing about Alzheimer's is you get to hide your own Easter eggs.'" (Earlier in the 2008 campaign season, he reworked that joke to make himself the target.)

McCain hasn't toned down the jokes, which often play better with the audiences at his town halls than when snipped out and recycled on YouTube, as was the case in an incident in which he — in jest — referred to a young man who asked about his age as "you little jerk," before telling him, "You're drafted."

McCain's political allies also sometimes feel the sting. He has jokingly threatened staffers with waterboarding (a practice he condemns as torture). After former Texas Sen. Phil Gramm, a close McCain adviser, dismissed talk of a bad economy as mere psychology, McCain told reporters he planned to make Gramm — who had been seen as a prospective Treasury secretary — ambassador to Belarus.

McCain was also recently condemned by the government of Iran for suggesting that increasing U.S. cigarette sales to Iran could be "a way of killing 'em."

"We condemn such jokes and believe them to be inappropriate for a U.S. presidential candidate," said Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini. "It is most evident that jokes about genocide will not be tolerated by Iranians or Americans."

Iranian criticism, though, is more or less a badge of honor for presidential candidates of both parties. And McCain spokesman Brian Rogers said McCain's humor is, more broadly, central to his appeal.

"He's long said that he's said and done things in the past that he regrets," Rogers said. "You've just got to move on and be yourself — that's what people want. They want somebody who's authentic, and this kind of stuff is a good example of McCain being McCain."

But while voters say they want authenticity, McCain's campaign may test how much of his raw humor Americans can take.

"The world has changed," former Sen. Kerrey said. "It's a lot harder to tell jokes than it used to be."