It’s bad enough that one of the snarkiest comedy outlets around, The Onion, can’t seem to find anything funny about President Barack Obama. But the faux newspaper hit a new low this week by insulting former President Ronald Reagan’s Alzheimer’s Disease and his economic record in one nasty twofer.
Week after week The Onion bends over backward not to satirize The One. That’s keeping in line with most of today’s cowardly comics, from David Letterman to Bill Maher.
Jon Stewart of “The Daily Show” has shown some interest in pursuing the president’s comic potential, but it comes in fits and starts. But The Onion’s latest attempt at humor is both vicious and wrongheaded.
“U.S. Government Finds $20 Trillion Buried by Absentminded Reagan in 1987,” the headline cries.
The article tells how Reagan stored away a near endless array of Mason jars, shoe boxes and other small capsules with small amounts of money, keepsakes and other trivial goods toward the end of his second term.
The find means the country’s current economic crisis is over, we’re told, and the article further hints the nation’s money woes can be traced directly back to the 40th president.
Never mind Obama’s stimulus package has led to a ballooning of the national deficit to comic proportions.
Nothing worth satirizing there, folks. Move along.
Presidents should never be protected from satire, but a gag related to Reagan’s mental health in light of his Alzheimer’s Disease is a pretty low blow.
In case the reader isn’t sure the piece mocks Reagan’s mental state, check out his part of the story:
“Reports from retired Secret Service agents who routinely witnessed a disoriented Reagan sneaking out of the White House late at night …”
Maybe Onion readers will have to wait 20-plus years for the newspaper to dare tackle Obama’s profligate spending.
The piece ends with this vile faux quote from an average citizen:
“I guess the poor man [Reagan] wasn’t as crazy as everyone thought. Turns out he was a [expletive] lunatic.”