Another look at the FORGOTTON SATIRIST
'Obama is a black guy made in the lab by white guys'
IS THERE ANYONE HE HASN'T OFFENDED? Long before Jon Stewart & The Daily Show came on the scene,
the biting razor-sharp ANTI-shtick of the one and only MORT SAHL scathingly satirized current events & major public figures.
From the beginning Mort's contention has been that a political comic's duty is to call candidates on their foibles, regardless of the ideology. Taking delight in the deflation of detached dignitaires & their dearly-held dogma, setting his sights on any & all,
Sahl manages to maintain a naturally causally conversational demenor in his free-flowing vents yet still shows no mercy in his skewering attacks on stupidity, grandiosity and pomposity.
Getting audiences to think with his dead-on impaling hits on contemporary concerns & controversial issues,
Sahl's trailblazing standup comedy lead the way from the typical lame jabs & tame jokes of the time to the critically acerbic wit of comedians like Lenny Bruce, Woody Allen, George Carlin & Richard Pryor.
At age 80, and now more than half a century after "The Angry Young Man" took to the national stage, Saul's relevantly reflective & irreverent satirical style remains an inspiration to humorists & social critics across America. As journalist John Hart put it,
"Mort Sahl doesn't tell jokes so much as he tells the truth."
Quips & Quotes from a Comedic Elder Statesman :
(on THE GOVERNMENT): "(Will Rogers) used to come out with a newspaper & pretend he was a yokel criticizing the intellectuals who ran the government. I come out with a newspaper and pretend I'm an intellectual making fun of the yokels running the government."
(on GOVERNMENT & OWNERSHIP): In Saudi Arabia, ''everything is owned by one family.'' In El Salvador, ''everything is owned by 14 families'' and the country ''is thus classified as a democracy.''
(on POLITICAL CONSISTENCY): "It became apparent to me that if you maintain a consistent political position, you'll eventually be tried for treason"
(on PRIVATE PROPERTY RIGHTS): "Liberals feel unworthy of their possessions. Conservatives feel they deserve everything they've stolen."
(on the DEATH PENALTY): ''I'm for capital punishment. You've got to execute people - how else are they going to learn?''
(on GOVERNMENT & GOLF): 'If you are in the Eisenhower Administration, you have a lot of problems, like whether or not to use an overlapping grip.''
(on LBJ): ''Lyndon Johnson is the first President to put the country in his wife's name.''
(on VIETNAM): "You know why the liberals say we should get out of Vietnam, why it's 'a senseless war'? Because we're losing.''
(on the RAMIFICATIONS OF THE 1960's): "If anybody comes up to you and says 'My kid is a conservative, why is that?',
you say, 'Remember in the 60's when we told you if you kept using drugs, your kids would be mutants?'"
(on NIXON): "Nixon's the kind of guy that if you were drowning fifty feet off shore, he'd throw you a thirty foot rope. Then Kissinger would go on TV the next night and say that the President had met you more than half-way."
(on PRESIDENTIAL VERACITY): "Washington couldn't tell a lie, Nixon couldn't tell the truth, and Reagan couldn't tell the difference."
(on the 1980 ELECTION): "Reagan won because he ran against Jimmy Carter. If he ran unopposed, he would have lost."
(on the 1996 ELECTION*): "There were four million people in the American Colonies and we had Jefferson and Franklin. Now we have over 200 million and the two top guys are Clinton and Dole. What can you draw from this?
Darwin was wrong!"
(running into Michael Caine at the actor's London restaurant,
where Caine said "Mort Saul! What are you doing here?"): "We're back! The experiment failed."
(on ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER): "A left-wing fascist posing as a right wing fascist."
(characterizing Bush 43's public policy): "No Billionaire Left Behind"
(on GEORGE W. BUSH): "He's the face on the can. But who canned that soup?"
(
Sahl's GWB anecdote): "You know, I know the president, and he told me that he doesn't drink. And he said, 'I don't need it, because I've been born again.' And what occurred to me in the moment was: IF you had the rare opportunity to be born again, why would you come back as George Bush?"
(on SEAN HANNITY): "Isn't it possible for them to get a real fascist instead of this guy who plays one on TV?"
(on defining CONSERVATIVES): "A conservative is someone who believes in reform. But not now."
(*on the then-wider 2008 GOP PRESIDENTIAL FIELD): "Did you see the Republican debate hosted by Chris Matthews? He asked them if they believed in evolution, and 10 of them said no. MY question is, when you look at those 10 people, do
you believe in evolution?"
(on defining LIBERALS): ''A liberal is somebody who will do the right thing for the wrong reasons so he can feel good for eight minutes.''
(on HILLARY): "If she's the next president of the United States, that'll be the last president of the United States....She's unqualified. She's riding on her husband, and I'm not sure he was qualified....She's a good example of what can happen to a woman when nobody loves her."
(on PAUL WELLSTONE'S DEATH): "Maybe he died legitimately; maybe he didn't. It's funny, but the guys who
liked the war are still around."
(on the DEMOCRATS IN GENERAL): "The party has been co-opted. When the bank keeps getting robbed, the police start looking for an inside job."
(on LEADERSHIP IN GENERAL): "There aren't any revolutionaries anymore because political leaders are chosen by corporations. How much money did Mahatma Gandhi or Che Guevara raise? How much did Kerry and Bush raise?"
(on THE YOUNGER GENERATION): "There has definitely been an attempt to 'corporatize' young people, make them more materialistic. But if they didn't have a dream, it wouldn't have been necessary to execute Howard Dean in public, because their dreams were in his briefcase."
(on RULE OF LAW): "They used to say that no one is above the law. I know a lot of people above the law -- and almost everybody is above a lawyer. But I believe no one is above humor. In that sense, my work is never done."
(on GOD): "God is watching us. If we support someone we don't believe in and say he's electable, then God will make sure he's not elected and hope we do better the next time."
(on OPTIMISTIC ELECTION PREDICTIONS): "The two candidates are in a row boat. It springs a leak, but there's only one life jacket. Who does God save? Answer: He lets them both drown, choosing to save the country instead."
(on GENERAL WISDOM/POPULAR OPINION): "The majority is always wrong."
(on PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION ADVICE): "
Vote NO "
(on his MOTTO): "If you can't join them, beat them."
(when asked if he's a Democrat or a Republican): "Neither, I'm a Radical"
(on his OCCUPATION): "If you were the only person left on the planet, I would have to attack you. That's my job."
http://www.mortsahl.com/
