Fans of the TV show Seinfeld might remember the episode called, “The Summer of George” where reoccurring character George Costanza spends the severance money he received from his former employer, the New York Yankees on shall we say questionable things, with his summer ultimately ending with him in the hospital.
James Taranto in a column for the WSJ describes a summary sent in by a reader named Daniel Lomis where he compares “The Summer of George” to “Recovery Summer”…Seinfield and another George might just come out ahead.
By JAMES TARANTO
Reader Daniel Loomis sends along his capsule summary of “The Summer of George,” the eighth-season finale of “Seinfeld,” which aired May 15, 1997: “George uses his severance from the Yankees to stimulate the perfect summer–the ‘Summer of George’–but spends it playing frolf (frisbee golf), watching ‘The White Shadow,’ ‘investing’ in a recliner with a built-in refrigerator, taking midmorning naps, banging his head on tables, and having insignificant telephone conversations. Eventually, he ends up in the hospital having to relearn to walk.”And here is Loomis’s capsule summary of “The Summer of Recovery,” the finale of the first full season of “Obama,” a midseason replacement that premiered to hype and high ratings but is now struggling and may face cancellation: “Barack uses his trillion dollar stimulus to create the best summer ever–the ‘Recovery Summer’–but wastes hundreds of billions on things like studies on how cocaine affects monkeys, investigating the link between yoga and hot flashes, bus-stop art, international ant research, and an upgrade to the statehouse and political offices in Topeka, Kan. Eventually, the economy ends up barely ambulatory.”
There are other parallels. Like “Seinfeld,” “Obama” is a show about nothing. Like George Costanza, Barack Obama is ending his summer with a fall, albeit a figurative plunge rather than a literal one. Oh, and Obama’s “Summer of Recovery” has actually turned out to be a summer of George, though we don’t mean Costanza…
Go read the rest HERE
This was supposed to be the summer of George!
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Heh! I love this article!
It’s amazing how the networks completely missed the humor of conservatives. This is a clever article. Many conservatives are clever, witty and funny. Had the networks taken a more balanced approach years ago they’d know this. Watch the network morning shows. Regardless of your politics there is no question the Fox team are the most relaxed and fun of the four network programs. The others are too self-serious and haughty. Rush Limbaugh has a wicked sense of humor, but nobody in network television has ever heard his show. Dennis Miller, Andrew Wilkow, Mike Church, Glen Beck, Greg Gutfeld, Mark Steyn, Jonah Goldberg, Byron York, Rob Long… Funny and self-deprecating. Rank the last 5 or so Presidents in order of humor; Reagan, Bush II, maybe Kennedy next.
Now that new media is here, and the networks don’t control who we see, Conservative and Libertarian humor is being heard; South Park, Red Eye, Penn and Teller’s Bullsh*t, maybe Mike Rowe on “Dirty Jobs” even qualifies. Smugness and self-importance aren’t funny, and far too many network people affect those attitudes. Matt Lauer and the Harry guy on CBS make me want to pull an Elvis on my TV screen.
Our local rag stinks. I wouldn’t force the Firefly canary to use it as a cage liner, if we Fireflies had a canary. So, we subscribe to the Wall Street Journal. I was concerned it may go downhill after Rupert stepped in, but so far I think it’s gotten better. I do miss the pencil artwork, though.
Part of what makes anything featuring Costanza doubly funny is that name, “George.” What a dorky name. You want to ridicule the guy simply on that alone.
SO is that why people went after GWB?
It’s a big part of it. George Carlin’s real name was Carl, but he changed it to George to get more laughs.
Sure he did…reference.