I had difficulty picking up this book. Not in the sense of finding it (it’s everywhere) or that it’s big and heavy (it’s relatively lightweight). It’s a mood thing. While the countdown to the US presidential election may have done wonders for satire, the November fallout didn’t do much for laughter. I had no great desire to review anything humourous about the US. But luckily, this is a book that rewards random surfing rather than sequential reading. (I know what you’re saying; “so you still haven’t read it all the way through, huh Olson?”)
America: (The Book) is a team effort from the writers of The Daily Show, a “fake news” program seen here on the Comedy Channel. Hosted by Jon Stewart, it’s the brightest, hippest offering from US network television. And Stewart, one of the sharper blades in the media pantry, doesn’t suffer fools gladly. A few months ago, when the hosts of CNN’s Crossfire grilled him for being too soft on guest Senator John Kerry, he responded that it was CNN that should be held to professional standards of journalism, not a show “preceded by puppets making crank phone calls.” Touché.
Stewart and his stalwart crew of fake news reporters are actually as hard on the Democrats as they are on the Republicans. This equal opportunity satire is exported to the book, which is loosely modeled on a US high school civics text. Chirpy factoids and sprightly charts decorate the pages, reminiscent of past satirical efforts out of the New York publishing world, like Spy Magazine and National Lampoon’s high school yearbook series.
The foreword by Thomas Jefferson is a nice touch. “We were men. We had flaws. Adams was an unbearable prick and squealed girlishly at the sight of a bug. And Ben Franklin? If crack existed in our day, that boozed-up snuff machine would weigh 80 pounds and live outside the Port Authority.”
The book doesn’t attempt to replicate the show, and that’s a good thing. Daily news (fake or otherwise) goes stale quickly, and there’s no way a book could capture Rob Corddry’s rubber-faced indignation or Stephen Colbert’s sanctimonious mock-punditry without including a DVD. But it isn’t all just glib mockery in these pages. There is the promise of salvation for the blue-state schmucks who lost in 2004. “Once the Rapture has occurred and the saved are off the planet, the Democrats will regain both the House and the Senate.”
Under a chart of the century’s news milestones, we learn that Orson Wells’ War of the Worlds radio broadcast terrified the nation in 1939. “Realizing they’ve been fooled, Americans shake their radios furiously to punish the little men inside.” Television debuted at the New York World’s Fair a year later. “People momentarily fascinated, then complain nothing’s on.” In 1974, Watergate resulted in a president brought down by investigative journalists. “Investigative journalists declare ‘nice work,’ take the rest of millennium off.”
The rest of America goes on in that vein. After you’ve read the entire book, there’s even a certificate of completion for you to sign. Mine is still blank.
America: (The Book) – A Citizen’s Guide to Democracy Inaction, Warner Books, $34.95. Vancouver writer and political cartoonist Geoff Olson can be reached at gefo@telus.net