Lets face it...

these days, with the 24 news cycle & perpetual "opposition research", politicians can't afford to be funny. One man's gaffe is another man's Wow Gag. So it follows that natural selection imposes this maxim on the political genepool and produces ever more unfunny politicians. If that is the case then WHY perpetual the Annual South Boston Parade Breakfast? The jokes are so lame they need wheelchairs and the tellers of jokes are at best stumblebums in the arena of humor, jobbers, cannon fodder in a word...unfunny. It didn't used to be like that, Abraham Lincoln was considered a humorist of sufficient means to warrant his favorite stories publication under the title "Old Abe's Rib Tickklers", Adlai Stevenson was cut dead at the polls but his wit never failed him and even a stiff like Eisenhower could joke in front an audience with some assurance. These days? Forget it the job no longer prizes wit (it tracks along with the decline in general of the art of political oratory) so we no longer produce politicians that are witty. Overall its a loss, but as a excuse to shut down that damned Saint Patrick's Day Breakfast it works like gangbusters.