It can be argued that much like in performing stand-up comedy, so too, in a political life it is important to know your audience.
Just ask Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn, who has been feeding off an old, tired punch line for years until it bit him in the keister.
And suddenly a popular liberal Democratic mayor who had been touted for a high-profile Washington position had Hillary Clinton been elected president found himself being nationally vilified as an insensitive and sexist oaf — all because of a casual, oft-told throwaway not-all-that-funny joke.
Aside from being mayor, Buckhorn loves playing war, which enables the 58-year-old hizzoner to channel his inner 8 year old.
So it was that during recent remarks before more than 1,000 attendees at a luncheon for the Special Operations Industry Conference in Tampa, Buckhorn recalled with great relish how much fun he has participating in local military exercises where the real soldiers give him a chance to play pretend warrior by getting to shoot blanks from a .50-caliber machine gun aboard a Navy special warfare boat.
Big gun go "Boom, Boom!" Mayor has way big fun. Mayor gets excited blasting away with fake bullets. Well, we all have our hobbies.
"The first place I point that gun is at the media," Buckhorn riffed. "I've seen grown men cry like little girls, for when that gun goes off, those media folks just hit the deck like no one's business. It's great payback. I love it."
To be sure, some in the audience cackled and applauded Buckhorn's gag. But others didn't. In attendance that day were also several war correspondents who posted on the Facebook page of Military Editors and Reporters their aversion to the mayor bragging what a joy it is to pretend to be shooting journalists. Too picky?
Were they being overly sensitive to a really, really bad joke? Perhaps. But then again these are also people who have actually witnessed the horrors of war, have actually had guns with live ammunition pointed at them and who have actually lost colleagues in combat.
Since 1992, more than a 1,000 journalists have been killed around the globe for simply trying to do their jobs. Last year alone, the International News Safety Institute estimates 115 journalists were killed in the line of duty.
As well, equating non-existent journalists quivering like "little girls" at the prospect of a mayor playing macho man by firing blank bullets at them hardly endeared Buckhorn to many women, who, by the way, also serve as war correspondents and who have also lost their lives in pursuit of their craft.
Buckhorn has been peddling his week-kneed reporters shtick for years and nobody ever raised much of a stink over it. And indeed, if the mayor had made this same speech before a Rotary Club, or a Chamber of Commerce event it would have all simply been shrugged off as: "Oh there goes the big lug again, regaling us all with phony claims of bravado."
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Explore all your optionsHowever, in this instance a pol known for his keen, savvy political skills, not to mention a very positive and friendly relationship with the Tampa Bay news media, failed to grasp who his audience was and in the time it took to deliver a wisecrack he quickly found himself belittled in the Washington Post (where his father once worked), CNN (where his brother now works) and across various social media platforms.
Finally, the mayor issued an apology, praising the work of journalists, to anyone who was offended. But the normally accessible Buckhorn, who loves news conferences and cameras, issued the mea culpa through his spokesperson.
Well, he was probably busy flying that secret bombing run over the mean skies of Damascus.