The undisputed leader in Clinton humor this year is Saturday Night Live. In fact, the show may be funnier now than in its putative heyday. There are a couple of disturbing signs, though, that SNL is going soft. At the beginning of the new fall season, Colin Quinn, who does the fake newscast, announced that it was time to take it easy on Bill Clinton: After all, the president is doing a fine job, and many great men indulge in a little hanky-panky. Why, even George Washington, the Father of Our Country who swore that he could not tell a lie, succumbed to syphilis -- and what faithful truth-teller ever "died of the clap"?
THE SCRAPBOOK is happy to report that Quinn grossly misinformed his (undoubtedly huge) audience. Our favorite George Washington biographer, WEEKLY STANDARD contributor Noemie Emery, reminds us that Washington was in strapping health only the day before he died. Then he was afflicted with a sudden throat ailment, which quickly took him -- to the bafflement of his doctor. Washington most certainly did not die of the clap.
Days after the Quinn sermonette, Kelsey Grammer, of Frasier, who was to guest-host SNL, announced that he, too, would refrain from having fun at Clinton's expense. He explained on the Today show that "people have offered me help in my lifetime, and obviously that's something the president could use at this time." Clinton, said Grammer, is the victim of a "self-destructive" impulse: "It's a condition you have to treat."
Okay, sure, but spare us the pathos. If SNL's Gerald Ford can fall repeatedly down staircases; if its Ronald Reagan can nap without cease; then its Bill Clinton can keep fiddling with his cigar.