We're here at the Helen Mills Theater for a night of politics and laugh with a panel moderated by Andy Borowitz (The Borowitz Report), David Rees (Get Your War On), Scott Dikkers (editor-in-chief of The Onion) and Robert Lanham (The Hipster Handbook); and he started it with an awesome stand-up comedy bit. One of the quotes : "John McCain is a true American Hero and I honor his years of service to our country ... but what an asshole".

David Rees says his political satire started with the 9/11 and subsequent "war on terror".

At The Onion they started with silly fake news and it wasn't years later that they figured out that they could create political satire through their fake news. Borowitz asks Dikkers about the famous edition of the newspaper that they published right after 9/11, at a time when comedians were told that comedy was dead. But through out the years they learn that "tragedy equals comedy". After creating fake editions about the Titanic and after covering the explosion of the, they find the right tone. They knew they needed to spoof the event and the aftermath but not the victims. "Laughter becomes a wonderful coping mechanism ... you have to release some tensions ... that release helped up release with some of those tension".

"My first babysitter was Tom Coburn, a senator known for advocation the death penalty for abortion doctors", says Robert Lanham. When he heard that the evangelical right had helped Bush ascend to power, he decided to write about this particular part of politics that he had been raised in.

More funny bits :
Dikkers : I don't want to make fun of a tragedy, but it is harder during years of prosperity like during the Clinton years. It is too easy with Bush.

Borowitz : The Joe Scarborough's of the world are losing their shit and it's going to get worse. (On how comedy workers will have lots of material to work during an Obama administration)

Reese: The deep structural problems are going to get so, so bad and I think that it's going to be good for satire.

Borowitz : This is reassuring to me. You're giving me the will to continue.

Dikkers says that nobody has made fun of the fact that John McCain has always had short arms. Borowitz says that he can't even pick up the phone.

Lanham can't wait to see Obama and McCain debating because it's be fun to see McCain loose his temper. Also because he's much shorter than Obama (by as much as 3 feet) and that makes for good visual comedy.

David thinks it's going to be pretty depressing after Bush leaves office. "I think it'll be rough". "For me the big dynamic is to move beyond the baby boomers and their psychodramas".

Awesome moment :

Borowitz : Hillary Clinton lying about Bosnia was the single most insane thing said in American politics.
Reese : And she said "I said things that I knew not to be true".
Borowitz : She lied in a pathological way.
Reese : Oh so you're misogynist
Borowitz : Now I feel I have to cry to bring the audience to my side.

Dikkers : "This is why I love David's work because he is genuinely cynical and depressed".

Reese : "I am so not cynical, I am embarrassingly optimistic".

Borowitz makes the point that 1 million people watch The Daily Show on a good day but about 21 million still watch the evening news. The panel agrees that satire doesn't have a profound effect. David Reese makes the point about the Mustache Brothers of Burma who do political satire and get constantly imprisoned for their work. Political satire is important when it is dangerous to do, like in a repressive system like Burma.

The one surprise Lanham had with his book about evangelicals is that it's read by many evangelicals who like it and thank him for it.

"I hate that!" David Reese says satire has gone way off the rails when you want to have Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama on SNL for a bit. David Reese has gone into an awesome rant about The Colbert Report having Henry Kissinger on the show for a "Guitar Hero" bit. "That crossed a creepy line".

"All you Hillary voters who want to vote for McCain, there you have it ... That is the one word I have not used on my comic strip. It's such a bad word. And he uses it and on his wife. He went there!", David Reese on reports about John McCain insulting his wife with the C-word years ago in front a whole group of reporters. (The source is Cliff Schechter's unauthorized biography, "The Real John McCain")