Paul Thomas: If we don't laugh, we'll cry

Paul Thomas

George S. Kaufman has several claims to fame.

First and foremost he was a lion of Broadway. Every Broadway season from 1921-58 featured a play either written or directed by him.

He was also a screenwriter, whose credits included the Marx Brothers' A Night at the Opera, and a stalwart of the Algonquin Round Table, the legendary circle of New York writers and theatre people who gathered at the Algonquin Hotel to make each other laugh or blush over lunch.

One of their games involved devising an amusing sentence incorporating an unlikely word. Given the word "horticulture", famed wit Dorothy Parker came up with: "You can lead a horticulture but you can't make her think."

Although not present in court, Kaufman was a star turn in Hollywood star Mary Astor's sensational 1935 divorce case. Having given a hostage to fortune by recording her affair with Kaufman in a diary, Astor compounded her error by stowing the diary in her underwear drawer where it was discovered by her husband.

Whatever he was looking for, it presumably wasn't an exhaustive and ecstatic account of his wife's adultery, containing such gems as: "It's been years since I've felt up a man in public but I just got carried away ..."

Two of Kaufman's one-liners have stood the test of time to the extent that they are quoted by people who have no idea who they're quoting. There was his reaction upon encountering an acquaintance who'd delayed his departure from New York after a round of farewells: "Ah, forgotten but not gone." And there was this pronouncement which went on to become a show business article of faith: satire is what closes on Saturday night.

However, the conventional wisdom that the general public either doesn't get satire or doesn't want to be disturbed by it is being challenged by American comedian Jon Stewart.

Stewart, whose vehicle The Daily Show appears on C4 four nights a week, has tapped into the anger, bewilderment and scepticism of a nation which, despite supposedly being the apple of God's eye, is being buffeted by one damn thing after another: 9/11, two foreign wars that were sold as walks in the park but increasingly resemble wallows in a quagmire, the dawning realisation that the US is massively indebted to its increasingly assertive rival China and now, of course, the economic firestorm.

During the past fortnight, the biggest media story in the US has been Stewart's withering assault on the financial news channel CNBC which culminated in a face-off with one of the network's star presenters.

Stewart's broad charge was that networks like CNBC and pundits like Jim Cramer who were billed as financial gurus were derelict in their journalistic duty in that they continued to cheerlead for the financial sector well past the point at which informed, dispassionate observers should have suspected that things were going to hell in a handcart and raised the alarm.

Stung by Stewart's combination of mockery and damning video footage, Cramer made two costly mistakes. He resorted to dismissive sarcasm - "Oh, a comedian is attacking me. Wow. He runs a variety show" - and he agreed to duke it out on air with his tormentor.

If it had been a boxing fight, Cramer's corner would have thrown in the entire contents of the linen cupboard but this was live television and the air time was locked in. So Cramer floundered and grovelled on, like a dog trying to wriggle out of a hiding by making itself pathetic.

Stewart's critics, few in number and mainly on the right, accuse him of being a committed lefty who only lashed these guys because they lashed his precious Barack Obama.

This is a red herring: if Stewart's satire hits the mark, it doesn't matter where he's coming from. Besides, I don't remember too many conservatives complaining about bias when P.J. O'Rourke was having vicious fun at liberals' expense. Stewart's declared political leanings will only become relevant if and when he chooses to flog dead conservative and free enterprise horses when live liberal and governmental ones are crying out for a touch-up.

Satire is the use of humour to expose and ridicule influential people who don't deserve to be treated with the respect they demand. The financial pundits claimed to be experts but they didn't see this thing coming any earlier than the person in the street.

They claimed to be gimlet-eyed scrutineers yet they enthusiastically contributed to the smokescreen of hype and disinformation behind which many a house of cards was erected.

The consequences of that are now being borne by the general public, which might be why Stewart's brand of satire didn't close on Saturday night.