Jay Leno: Republicans 'Laugh at Themselves More' Than Democrats

A very common media contention is that liberals have a far greater sense of humor than conservatives.

Tonight Show host Jay Leno dispelled this myth this week in a Press Pass interview with NBC's David Gregory wherein he told the Meet the Press moderator, "Democrats and Republicans are interesting because Republicans really laugh at themselves more" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

DAVID GREGORY, HOST: You know, I remember, we were just talking about this, covering then Governor Bush when he came on the show back in 2000. You him on, you had Al Gore. And one of the things Bush did so well was that he was creat with you, you know, he could be funny. What about Mitt Romney? What was your take? He was here recently

JAY LENO: You know, Democrats and Republicans are interesting because Republicans really laugh at themselves more. Like when Bush came on it was, "We want to do a skit. We're kind of making fun"--"Yeah, go ahead." And the skit was we were going, we were play "Jeopary!", and we had Bush going, "What is this?" "What is that?" "What is this?" Like as if he didn't know. And then it was course like "Jeopardy!" He was answering the questions like Alex Trebek. And we just walked up, "Can we do the sketch?" "Yeah, fine."

We went up to Al Gore. We want to do this skit. Hang on. And there was a focus group and then media people came in. Where will Al be sitting? OK, now will Al have the punch--well, it's just, we don't have to it. It's, it's not a big. And, you know, in the dressing room, Al Gore was very engaging and very funny and very loose.

GREGORY: Yeah. yeah.

LENO: But once the camera came on, oh, no.

GREGORY: But this is a key test. Will you go on "The Tonight Show" and let it rip if you're a politician? Right? Isn't that, I mean, it's a test from their side of it.

LENO: Yeah. I mean, I mean, we, I remember we had John Kerry on and he came on on a motorcycle and had a beer, and it just seemed like we're pushing a little too hard here. I mean, I like John Kerry, but I just felt like, really? He rode the bike on a ramp, you know, had the leather jacket. He's a regular guy, by golly. You know? It was very funny.

The other thing that was interesting about this interview was that in the entire sixteen minutes, Barack Obama's name was only mentioned once.

Gregory and Leno spent far more time chatting about the latter's take on George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, John Kerry, Rick Santorum, and Mitt Romney.

The only mention of Obama was a very brief clip of a spoof video Leno's team created of the current president singing Al Green's "So In Love With You" to Dmitry Medvedev.

After the clip, Gregory asked, "Is he easy to make fun of, this president?"

Leno replied, "Well, Clinton and Bush was the golden age of comedy."

And believe it or not, that was all Gregory and Leno had to say about Obama - roughly 30 seconds out of sixteen minutes.

Which validates Greg Gutfeld's observation this week that "Asking a comedian to make fun of Obama is like asking a priest to mock Christ."

Pretty sad.