Yesterday (Tuesday) the New York Times published an interesting article addressing an issue of uncharted waters for comedians…they are finding it very difficult to walk the fine line with regard to telling jokes about Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama.

The article mainly addressed the plight of white late night comedians like Jay Leno, David Letterman and Conan O’Brien who have always been looked upon to break the political tension with comic relief.

“But there has been little humor about Obama: about his age, his speaking ability, his intelligence, his family, his physique. And within a late-night landscape dominated by white hosts, white writers, and overwhelmingly white audiences, there has been almost none about his race.”

I think that obviously racial tensions and fear of backlash for inappropriate commentary plays a huge part in the equation.  Most black comedians, at least in my estimation have been fueled with endless material since Obama announced his candidacy focusing mostly on what his potential experience in the white house might be.  Obviously given the current racial landscape in this post-Imus firing era, there is no way David Letterman is going to make a joke about Obama eating collard greens in the White House, making Kool-Aide the national drink or putting rims on the presidential limo.

“Those guys really can’t go there,” David Alan Grier tells the paper.  “It’s just like the gay comic can do gay material. It comes with the territory.” Still, he said, he has no sympathy for the hosts. “No way. They’ve had 200 years of presidential jokes. It’s our time.”

According to the article, “When Jon Stewart on ‘The Daily Show’ recently tried to joke about Obama changing his position on campaign financing, for instance, he met with such obvious resistance from the audience, he said, ‘You know, you’re allowed to laugh at him.’”

“Anything that has even a whiff of being racist, no one is going to laugh,” said Rob Burnett, an executive producer for Letterman. “The audience is not going to allow anyone to do that.”

This “problem” addresses yet another issue however.  There are no Black late night talk show hosts.  Back in the 80’s, 90’s we had Arsenio Hall and I’m sure he would have had a field day with Obama commanding ratings from his competitors but no figure like that exists today.