Comedians using politics to get laughs is cool. Comedians getting used by politicians to win votes is lame. With several do-or-die primaries for Hillary Clinton looming, the former first lady appeared on Saturday Night Live and delivered its show-opening catchphrase. Hillary is hardly the first politician to appear on Saturday Night Live. After 9/11, Rudy Giuliani appeared on the program and did an outstanding job, particularly on Janet Reno's Dance Party. Mike Huckabee and Barack Obama have appeared on SNL this election cycle. Last weekend, Tina Fey delivered a political rant disguised as comedy. It was essentially a two-minute advertisement for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. It wasn't funny, and I guess that's my main complaint: when politics and comedy mix, comedy should rise to the top. I liked SNL better when a radiation-made giant Jimmy Carter appeared on weekend update, when Chevy Chase played Gerald Ford as Chevy Chase and not Gerald Ford, and when Dana Carvey's caricatures of George H.W. Bush made you think of Dana Carvey whenever you saw the real president speak. I liked it better because it made me laugh. "That would be terrible," Tina Fey sarcastically noted of a Clinton presidency, "having two intelligent, qualified people working together to solve problems." People laugh at such "jokes" out of political solidarity, not because they are funny.

I think that appearing on these kinds of programs degrades the standing of the candidates. Pardon the implied pun, but to me it shows just how un-serious they are and how lightly they take their responsibilities as elected officials charged with making serious potentially life or death decisions and with protecting our welfare.

I couldn't agree more. Politics is a serious subject for serious men.

In a democracy, it becomes an absurd topic for puerile men, so this should not come as a surprise.

Great book on that subject is "Notes on Democracy" by H.L Mencken