By the time Dennis Miller had a show of his own in the 1990s, it was established that he was for the death penalty, at least. Miller's HBO show was even the soap-box for a memorably strident defense of American capitalism: "Coming to America and complaining about the capitalism is like walking onto a baseball field and complaining that nobody's playing soccer." But even there Miller defied labeling as a conservative, as by devoting an installment to "What's wrong with Republicans?" and appealing for answers to Arianna Huffington. Then came 2004, when Dennis Miller "came out" on The Tonight Show in the most unabashed apologia for President Bush. He explained later that he had found himself on the Right on some questions for some time, but that it wasn't 'til after the 9/11 attacks that he turned the corner to conservatism, with the accustomed qualifier that he wasn't so conservative on those bothersome "social issues". And Dennis Miller today is a defender of President Bush and booster of Rudy Giuliani and a no-foolin' conservative commentator, with jokes.
Norm Macdonald in the presidential election year of 1996 graduated to the leading Bob Dole impressionist, and when he signed off his final Weekend Update before Election Day with "Vote for Bob Dole," that might've been influenced by the prospect of Macdonald's elevation to leading impressionist of a president of the United States, or a joke. Macdonald appeared on a Comedy Central year-in-review special not long after the 2004 election with a stand-up act that came at John Kerry's campaign from the sort of angle a skeptic would see, but still, nothing declarative. Well, it turns out that Norm Macdonald is something of a conservative, and a John McCain man of long standing.
Sometime in the early-middle '90s, before nostalgia for President Reagan had spread beyond committed conservatives, Dana Carvey gave an interview on Later with Bob Costas which got around somehow to a recollection of Reagan's reaction to the attempt on his life. It was highly sentimental, with the sort of admiration unlikely in anyone who'd passed the 1980s shrieking "trickle-down economics" or other leftist indictments of the greatest presidency and greatest age in America since mid-century. Carvey's George H. W. Bush impression was something of a sensation in the early '90s and earned him a relationship with the actual George H. W. Bush, and there was no concealing Carvey's affection for the man. Then in California's gubernatorial recall election of 2003 Dana Carvey campaigned for Arnold Schwarzenegger -- this being before Schwarzenegger's unconservative governorship dispelled the notion of his being a conservative Republican -- and against the Democrat governor and lieutenant governor Carvey took no prisoners.
Adam Sandler signed an open letter in defense of Israel at the time of its summer war against Hezbollah in 2006. Not very Hollywood of him, but an otherwise-impeccable leftist may be excused a parochial, pet heresy. But it turns out that Adam Sandler also is a Rudy Giuliani man, a donor to Giuliani and in the fullness of time not impossibly also a public advocate.
And then there's Victoria Jackson, who's been known even to turn up on The 700 Club: a lifelong and devout evangelical Christian and a longtime conservative.
This probably is not a complete list, and SNL is of course an institution with by now so many seasons and so many casts, that an SNL alumnus or two might be expected to be political conservatives, as a matter of statistics. But to watch Comedy Central for any length of time is to appreciate that contemporary comedy and shrilly-partisan, stock leftism are twin worlds in America. If nothing else, the monopoly is broken.
Addendum: A couple more SNL alumni, lifelong Democrats both, driven off the plantation or all the way over to the other side in the Age of Obama. Jon Lovitz who by 2012 was a businessman laboring to keep up a couple California comedy clubs bearing his name, "went F-bomb" on Obama and his class warfare, on mic, and then admirably stood his ground when the little enforcers of the Left inevitably descended on him for his heresy and blasphemy. And in 2013 Rob Schneider whose vitamins business had been chased out of his Democrat one-party-state of California, converted to Republican and endorsed a Republican assemblyman for governor.
Norm Macdonald in the presidential election year of 1996 graduated to the leading Bob Dole impressionist, and when he signed off his final Weekend Update before Election Day with "Vote for Bob Dole," that might've been influenced by the prospect of Macdonald's elevation to leading impressionist of a president of the United States, or a joke. Macdonald appeared on a Comedy Central year-in-review special not long after the 2004 election with a stand-up act that came at John Kerry's campaign from the sort of angle a skeptic would see, but still, nothing declarative. Well, it turns out that Norm Macdonald is something of a conservative, and a John McCain man of long standing.
Sometime in the early-middle '90s, before nostalgia for President Reagan had spread beyond committed conservatives, Dana Carvey gave an interview on Later with Bob Costas which got around somehow to a recollection of Reagan's reaction to the attempt on his life. It was highly sentimental, with the sort of admiration unlikely in anyone who'd passed the 1980s shrieking "trickle-down economics" or other leftist indictments of the greatest presidency and greatest age in America since mid-century. Carvey's George H. W. Bush impression was something of a sensation in the early '90s and earned him a relationship with the actual George H. W. Bush, and there was no concealing Carvey's affection for the man. Then in California's gubernatorial recall election of 2003 Dana Carvey campaigned for Arnold Schwarzenegger -- this being before Schwarzenegger's unconservative governorship dispelled the notion of his being a conservative Republican -- and against the Democrat governor and lieutenant governor Carvey took no prisoners.
Adam Sandler signed an open letter in defense of Israel at the time of its summer war against Hezbollah in 2006. Not very Hollywood of him, but an otherwise-impeccable leftist may be excused a parochial, pet heresy. But it turns out that Adam Sandler also is a Rudy Giuliani man, a donor to Giuliani and in the fullness of time not impossibly also a public advocate.
And then there's Victoria Jackson, who's been known even to turn up on The 700 Club: a lifelong and devout evangelical Christian and a longtime conservative.
This probably is not a complete list, and SNL is of course an institution with by now so many seasons and so many casts, that an SNL alumnus or two might be expected to be political conservatives, as a matter of statistics. But to watch Comedy Central for any length of time is to appreciate that contemporary comedy and shrilly-partisan, stock leftism are twin worlds in America. If nothing else, the monopoly is broken.
Addendum: A couple more SNL alumni, lifelong Democrats both, driven off the plantation or all the way over to the other side in the Age of Obama. Jon Lovitz who by 2012 was a businessman laboring to keep up a couple California comedy clubs bearing his name, "went F-bomb" on Obama and his class warfare, on mic, and then admirably stood his ground when the little enforcers of the Left inevitably descended on him for his heresy and blasphemy. And in 2013 Rob Schneider whose vitamins business had been chased out of his Democrat one-party-state of California, converted to Republican and endorsed a Republican assemblyman for governor.
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