LA WEEKLY
MARCH 5 -11, 2004
Miller's Crossing
Can a pro-Bush comedian get laughs?
by Brendan Bernhard
Mo: Conservative co-Host
Dennis Miller’s new talk show got off to a slightly confusing start
when,
seated next to a large chimpanzee called Ellie, he delivered an
impassioned
sermon how 9/11 had turned him into a supporter of George W. Bush,
homeland
security and the war on terror. As for Ellie, we were informed that she
was
going to be a “consultant� on the program. Her presence suggested a
desire
on Miller’s part to create a comedy-news show that would function both
as a
serious forum for discussion and as an opportunity for zany right-wing
comedy.
“I may be a Republican,� he was saying in effect, “but that
doesn’t
mean I’ve lost my sense of humor.�
Maybe not, but he has lost Ellie, who was retired after a handful of
appearances, perhaps because she pressed the Howard Dean “scream�
button on
Miller’s desk one too many times. Mo, a smaller, more amiable chimp, has
replaced her, and can occasionally be seen swinging across the studio on a
rope, nuzzling up to the host while he delivers a monologue, or turning
somersaults on a sofa while attempting to read Variety. Strangely, Miller
seems
to derive some comfort from having Mo to hang out with on camera. Perhaps
the
chimp’s warm, simian personality makes up for all the bad reviews he’s
been
getting from cold, nasty critics.
Miller hasn’t had much luck with his timing. His openly pro-Bush show
debuted
just as John Kerry became the Democratic front-runner and the
president’s
poll numbers went into a nosedive. No WMD in Iraq, an out-of-control
budget and
widespread revulsion at the tough-talking cowboy in the White House. You
could
hardly pick a worse time to declare yourself for the president and hope to
get
good ratings. In fact, Miller’s ratings did start out well, with 746,000
people (a huge figure by CNBC standards) tuning in to the first episode,
in
which he interviewed his pal Arnold Schwarzenegger, but they’ve slipped
down
to the 300,000 range since then.
Now compare that to Jon Stewart and The Daily Show, the gold standard for
television news-comedy, which has attracted as many as 1.9 million viewers
on
Comedy Central at 11 p.m., more than serious news shows on Fox, CNN and
MSNBC
can summon in the same time slot. Stewart, who was recently on the cover
of
Newsweek, is now so esteemed that a lot of people consider his “faux�
news
show to be a more valuable source of information than tired old
establishment
warhorses like World News Tonight, and in some ways they’re correct.
Ably abetted by the analyses and reports of hilariously self-important
“correspondents� like Stephen Colbert, Stewart has managed to turn the
traditional news show on its head while delivering a bracingly strong shot
of
Onion-esque “alternative� news at the same time. And he’s done it
with
such elegance and panache as to make his rivals — Bill Maher, Colin
Quinn and
now Miller — look like inebriated peasants trying out a few dance moves
while
standing next to Fred Astaire.
Or, even worse, like “angry white men� — a label that Maher, who
glares
at his guests when he disagrees with them and is apt to complain bitterly
about
feminists, sometimes gets stuck with. Quinn, whose Tough Crowd With Colin
Quinn
(Comedy Central) revels in its ability to deliver more racial insults in
half
an hour than any other show on television, is actually too good-humored to
be
called angry, but he does like to shock. On one program he suggested that
our
Middle East problems could be easily solved if we just threw the Jews to
the
Arabs. “What?� a fellow comedian responded, outraged. “The Jews
would
understand,� Quinn replied equably. “We’d go to them and say,
‘Hey,
it’s just business.’� Miller, who’s attempting to be serious,
angry and
funny all at the same time, is closer to the Maher camp. He has promised
to be
“an ombudsman� who will tell it like it is and become “incensed�
on the
viewer’s behalf, even if, etymologically speaking, an ombudsman is
supposed
to be a cucumber-cool Swede rather than an irate California comedian.
Stewart, an instinctive ironist, is way too savvy to pose as a
“truth-teller� or anything else. He deals in the coin of irony. Nor
would
anyone ever mistake him for an angry white man, except when he’s getting
angry at other white men, which doesn’t count: That’s called being a
sensible white man. He cried on-air after 9/11, and if something like that
ever
happens again, he’ll probably turn in a repeat performance. But in the
meantime he’ll carry on making fun of Tom Ridge and Bush and WMD and so
forth
not just because they’re easy satirical targets but because comedically
that’s the safe thing to do.
When satirizing the media, The Daily Show is brilliant, but when it comes
to
Osama bin Laden et al., Stewart just can’t wrap his head around the idea
of
an enemy, particularly a Third World one. Simply thinking about it makes
him
queasy, uncomfortable, and challenges his most deeply held belief, which
is
that it’s unseemly to get ticked off at anyone who isn’t rich,
Caucasian
and, hopefully, Republican. The municipal authorities of his own city may
be
working around the clock to prepare for the possibility of a nuclear
attack,
but Stewart can’t find it in his heart to resent the people who make
those
preparations necessary. Deep down, he’d prefer to think it’s all Dick
Cheney’s fault: If we hadn’t invaded Iraq, 9/11 would never have
happened.
Which is where Miller comes in. Not only is he comfortable with the idea
of
enemies and war, he doesn’t even have a problem with the elusive Cheney.
In
an interview with Newsweek investigative reporter Michael Isikoff about
David
Kay’s WMD report, Miller argued that today’s CIA is ineffectual
because of
legislation that prevented the agency from getting down and dirty with the
world’s bad guys. “Isn’t that the problem over there, that we got
out of
the dirty-people business?� Miller asked.
“Certainly, if you’re Dick Cheney, that would be the analysis,�
Isikoff
conceded.
“Well, I am Dick Cheney!� Miller replied, pretending to pull off a
facemask
and cracking himself up in the process.
Miller begins each episode of his program with “The Daily Rorschach,�
a
segment in which he sits at a desk and delivers wordy — some would say
laborious — riffs on the news, much as he once did on Saturday Night
Live and
Dennis Miller Live on HBO. (Sample jokes: “A new poll shows that Senator
Kerry’s support in the South is strongest among blacks. Kerry’s appeal
to
Southern blacks is obvious: He’s a white man who lives far, far away.
Kerry’s campaign is also gaining support among women. However, Kucinich
is
still tops among post-op trannies.�) This part of the program, at least,
could benefit mightily from a live audience, because without some laughter
to
feed off, Miller the comedian can seem a little lost, even with crew
members
providing some consolation chuckles offscreen.
But could he even attract a studio audience four days a week, particularly
one
that would laugh at his jokes? Studio audiences in L.A. and New York will
howl
at any anti-Bush joke, and cheer any anti-Bush remark, no matter how lame.
How
would they react to the jokes of an openly Republican comedian, even one
who’s laid-back on the cultural issues and is down with gay marriage?
We’ll
soon find out. Mo was recently seen holding up a sign with a toll-free
telephone number, and when the show returns from a 10-day hiatus on March
9, it
will be with a nightclub-style audience of 100 or so in attendance — as
well
as former Early Show and Today guru Steve Friedman as consulting producer.
After he gets through with the jokes, Miller generally interviews somebody
who
can illuminate a particular issue — Congressman Barney Frank on gay
marriage,
former U.N. inspector Scott Ritter on the missing WMD, historian Victor
Davis
Hanson on immigration. The second half of the show is then mostly taken up
by
the “Varsity Panel,� when Miller and three guests discuss topics from
the
day’s news. Contributors have included Naomi Wolf, David Horowitz, Henry
Louis Gates Jr., Lawrence O’Donnell, Mickey Kaus, Jill Stewart, Martin
Short,
Mark Cuban, Kellyanne Conway, David Denby and others. Here Miller acts
less
like a host than a fellow conversationalist, and seems as happy to listen
as to
interrupt. But he does get in a few wisecracks.
When Gates, the chair of Harvard’s Afro-American Studies Department,
mildly
reproved his fellow (all white) panelists for never reading Ebony or Jet,
Miller quipped: “I read the Cliffs Notes to Jet.� Later in the same
episode, Gates predicted that Al Sharpton would get 15 to 25 percent of
the
vote in the South Carolina primary. “Isn’t that one of the signs of
Armageddon?� Miller asked innocently.
The nice thing about the “Varsity Panel� (depending on his guests) is
the
relatively relaxed and straightforward attitude that Miller brings to it.
Although he worked briefly as a commentator for Hannity and Colmes on Fox,
he’s far from being a Murdochian attack dog, and he often sits there and
sucks it up while people tell him just how awful the administration of his
beloved commander-in-chief really is. (Naomi Wolfe almost went into
meltdown
mode as she assailed John Ashcroft and the Patriot Act.) Miller, it turns
out,
is considerably more interested in “diversity� than some of his
liberal
counterparts.
On a recent episode of Topic A With Tina Brown (CNBC), there were, by my
count,
seven guests who were Democrats, two Brits who would almost certainly vote
Labour (Brown herself and Greg Dyke, the ousted head of the BBC), along
with
one lone Republican, Betsy McCaughey, who was more or less told to shut up
by
Nora Ephron. A typical Miller panel, on the other hand, will be 50-50,
meaning
one Republican guest, two Democrats, and Miller himself to balance things
out.
Miller may be up front about his own political affiliation, even to the
point
of shilling for the Republicans, but despite his increasingly aggressive
America-first humor, he is unusually evenhanded in his selection of
guests.
“When it comes to protecting our country,� he said a couple of weeks
ago,
launching into a characteristic Ugly American rant, “I’ll call a guy
who
does his talking in a universal language all terrorist punks understand
— big
MOABs dropped right on their heads that say KABOOM for five city blocks.
And we
know who that is, don’t we?�
And then Miller introduced (by video screen) not, as you might expect,
Ollie
North or Attila the Hun, but the former U.S. secretary of labor under
Clinton,
Robert Reich, who proceeded to deliver an elegant editorial on the true
meaning
of the word patriotism. This boiled down — “I’m going to be accused
of
class warfare,� Reich warned — to a convincing argument for why,
contra
Miller’s beloved president, the rich should pay higher taxes. Somehow I
can’t imagine the Michael Moores and Al Frankens of this world — not
even
the Jon Stewarts — being quite so generous toward their adversaries.
There was a little coda, though. After Reich had finished, we rejoined
Miller,
who was hanging out with the chimp. “What’s that, Mo?� he asked,
bending
down as if to catch something the little critter was saying. “I know!
He’s
trying to instigate class warfare!�
So that’s why Miller likes Mo — he’s a Republican.
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