In the midst of one of the meanest political seasons we’ve seen in generations, yesterday’s St. Patrick’s Day breakfast in Southie, despite all of its painful attempts at humor, was a breath of fresh air because if there’s anything this country really needs right now it’s a good belly laugh.
If we can learn to laugh at ourselves, the old saw goes, we’ll never cease to be amused.
You don’t have to be a good comedian to be a hit; you just have to be a good sport, which is beyond the reach of too many puffed-up pols.
Remember the year John Kerry paid someone to produce lines that would make him appear jocular? As self-importance overtook him, Kerry no longer had it in him to loosen up, the way he did 20 years ago when he teamed with fellow blueblood Bill Weld in a vaudevillian duet: “Just because we don’t sweat for a dollar doesn’t mean we’re stiff as our collar.”
Ridiculous? Of course it was. That’s what made it funny.
No one’s ever been able to fill Billy Bulger’s shoes as MC of the breakfast. His wit, the stuff of legend, made him irreplaceable.
But Linda Dorcena Forry is irrepressible, which is almost as good.
Sure, Liz Warren and Charlie Baker elicited groans in their misguided lightheartedness over marijuana, and Bob DeLeo, a truly funny guy at the microphone, disappointed everyone by mailing in a video that bombed.
Scripture tells us a merry heart is good medicine, but it’s doubtful anyone who arrived feeling heavy-hearted went home feeling healed.
Indeed, most speakers sounded like they were giving a treasurer’s report at a Kiwanis meeting.
But at least no one had to preach about inclusiveness because you saw it everywhere you looked.
Forry, a Haitian-American, brought up Rep. Jeffrey Sanchez to sing “Danny Boy” in Spanish, and then joined the City Council’s four minority women — Michelle Wu, Ayanna Presley, Andrea Campbell, Annissa Essaibi George — in a delightful spoof of a classic Irish ditty they called, “The Girls Of The New Brigade.”
It was good stuff. Like the city, the breakfast has come a long way.
If only there were a similar event on a national stage.
The guessing here is that Donald Trump can kid with the best of them, and Bernie Sanders does possess a sense of humor, and Ted Cruz can laugh like he actually means it, and Hillary Clinton is capable of chuckling.
Boy, could we use that, if only for a day.
Where has all the humor gone?