On These Internet Sites, the Election Is for Laughs

Letterman, Leno and Maher are shaking behind their coffee mugs. The era of no-brainer political humor is coming to a close. For eight years now, President Clinton’s shenanigans ensured that comedy fodder was easy as pie. Or Big Macs. Or KFC and Pizza Hut. Stand-ups had their pick of G-rated fast-food one-liners or the saucier stuff.

But just when it seemed we might have nothing to gossip about except, gasp, the issues, technology comes to our aid, once again. Lo and behold, the current candidates can and do inspire laughter--and the Internet proves to be a fountain of mirth this election season.

With its authenticity always in question, the Internet is fertile ground for parodies. A Web site is a window into a world that might or might not exist. Photos are easily doctored, facts are easily fabricated.

So when visiting https://www.gwbush.com, the unobservant viewer may believe he or she is at campaign headquarters; after all, there’s the dignified profile of the candidate in front of the American flag. And while a Bush campaign spokeswoman said the site so closely resembles the official Bush campaign site (www.georgewbush.com) that people could be confused, the site’s Bush-bashing is far from subtle.

Zack Exley’s parody site takes direct aim at Bush’s reputation as a drug dabbler and political lightweight. Visitors can purchase T-shirts proclaiming “GW Bush, Not a Crackhead Anymore” and “Born with a silver spoon up his nose.” The site also shows animated dance sequences that depict the governor slurping from his beer helmet to the tune of that frat-house classic, “Louie, Louie.” There’s a serialized diary of Bush’s “Lost Years,” which speculates on how he may have spent the pre-drug-free years prior to 1974. Called “Fear and Loathing in East Texas,” the diarist is a youthful W torn between his inner party animal and his trust fund (strings attached.)

Likewise, it’s just an extra L that will misdirect those searching for the official Al Gore site. At https://www.allgore.com, the undiscerning eye will glean a mostly text-based parody that gently mocks Gore, the environmentalist, and Gore, the inventor of the Internet.

Goretopia! is one nook where the Vice President’s Livability Agenda is detailed. “Gore’s” plan for a “prosperity superhighway” includes eliminating automobiles in cities and turning the existing roads into biking and hiking trails. “Parking lots will be bulldozed to make way for family picnic areas and lemonade stands.”

Shockwave games poke fun at Gore’s environmental and health-care policies. In one, players get to wreak havoc as an unqualified doctor under Gore’s “socialized health-care” plan. Liberal Hollywood patients like Barbra Streisand Alec Baldwin (diagnosis: bleeding heart) meet unsavory ends, thanks to poor health care and you, the mouse master.

Far funnier flash animation can be found at Jib Jab Media, where a couple of Brooklyn brothers help Al and W loosen up a bit. “Capital Ill” is an election rap (available at https://jibjab.com or https://atomfilms.com) in which hip-hop homeboys GWB and A-to-the-L-to-the-G-O-R-E strut and posture and reach out to their neglected gangsta constituency.

“Is it germane, does it pertain, if I did cocaine, when I lived my life in the fast lane, if I refrain, I abstain on the campaign?” raps a funky rhymin’ Dubya. And the “twister outa’ Tennessee” gets, you know, jiggy with it, spittin’ “I’m the veep, goin’ deep, gonna leap, to a sweep/Might put the electorate straight to sleep.”

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More bipartisan satire can be found at “Billionaires for Bush (Or Gore),” a posse of equal-opportunity two-party poopers. The Web site, https://www.billionairesforbushorgore.com/, is far more clever and thought-provoking than either aforementioned parody as it delivers a wry, pointed attack on both candidates’ penchant to accept campaign contributions from--and thus be beholden to--big business. The billionaires glibly proclaim: “Vote for Bush, vote for Gore, we don’t care who you vote for; we already bought both the candidates. We’ve already won. Big Money United shall never be defeated.”

Running with this peas-in-the-pod theme of a political monolith, muckraker Michael Moore has directed a music video for the band Rage Against the Machine that can be viewed at his Web site, https://www.michaelmoore.com. The B-genre filmlet by the director of “Roger & Me” reveals a black-and-white world where aliens plot to conquer Earth by beaming down a mutant who splits into two heads (Bush’s and Gore’s), who then morph back and forth willy-nilly.

The video shows clips of the candidates uncannily uttering the same sound bites and sentiments. “He appears as two but speaks as one!” reads the silent-film-style subtitle.

Writes Moore on his home page, “[The aliens] say the same exact things, like they both support the death penalty and NAFTA and more Pentagon spending--and the pundits actually believe that they are two separate and distinct beings! I realize this could never happen and that intelligent humans would recognize such a ruse.”