I remember when Dennis Miller used to be funny

Dennis Miller, of Saturday Night Live fame, was at one time one of my favorite comedians. His sarcastic wit, his arcane cultural references, and use of language made him, in my opinion, one of the best in the business.

Of course, back then, he had a bit of a left-lean. I recall one of his HBO specials - "Dennis Miller: Black and White" - in which he explained that he would not ask pro-lifers for directions, much less their opinions on an unborn child, and that plans to put Ronald Reagan's head on Mt. Rushmore (yes, that was actually considered by the Reagan worshipping Gingrich congress!) were scrapped because it was discovered that 'granite was not a dense enough material to accurately portray the former president's head...'.

Alas, as time goes by, many people change, and not always for the better.

Some time between when I saw Miller live on the campus of Michigan State University ~1991 and about 2001, Dennis Miller became a conservative.
And along with that change, went his comedic genius.

Witty political rejoinders regarding the dim-wittedness of Alaska Senator Ted Stevens were gone, to be replaced with right-wing knee-slappers like responding to a comment that higher gas prices might be good for the environment and cut down on our reliance on foreign oil with a haughty intellectual "What is it with this Communist crap?"*

Wow, Dennis, insightful, clever stuff.

And now this.

Hinting that Nancy Pelosi is a 'nimrod' with a low IQ ranks right up there with another draft-dodging right-winger, Bruce Willis, urging people to vote for Bush 1 instead of Clinton/Gore because they are 'bozos.'

It seems that becoming a conservative makes a funny one no longer funny. The things that make conservatives laugh make most intelligent people whince in disgust, or stare blankly, wondering when the actual funny things are going to be said.
It is a shame. Miller was once worth listening to. Now, he is just a sad shadow of what once was. Right-wingery does that to you.




*This was on one of Miller's various short-lived talk shows, somewhere in the 2003-4 range. Unfortunatley, I forget the name of the show, as well as the name of the guest, but I distinctly remember Miller's idiotic reply, as it struck me as so uttelry irrelevant. It was at that time that I was certain Miller was no longer funny.