High-wire Political Parody

In the world of political standup comedy, there’s just one top gig: the White House Press Correspondents’ Dinner. There’s no such thing in Dutch politics. But I’ve come close. Every year Het Parool hosts an event called ‘The Year in Politics,’ and I was the host in 2010 – right after Geert Wilders took power. …But I’ll get to that in a minute.

One of the shows we do at Boom Chicago is ‘Political PARTY,’ celebrating Dutch politics American-style. Pep Rosenfeld & I co-host the show with pollster guru Maurice de Hond, and he invites his favorite Dutch politicians. For example, one of our first guests was Femke Halsema. First, we’d ask her a few questions. Next, we’d ask her to name her political adversary: Mark Rutte. Then she’d have to dress up as Mark Rutte and answer questions as Mark Rutte. It was a surprisingly liberating experience for her, and she was very good.

While Femke Halsema would be doing her Mark Rutte impression, I’d be sitting next to her doing my Femke Halsema impression. She’d be busy making Rutte look ridiculous, I’d be making her ridiculous. It’s one thing to stand in front of the President and make jokes about him. But sitting next to a politician and doing an impression of the politician is not for the faint of heart. Someday, I hope to live up to the shining example of Stephen Colbert standing next to George W. Bush and ridiculing the President without him realizing.

Another one of our guests onstage was Lodewijk Asscher. Back then, he was Amsterdam Deputy-Mayor. Now he’s Deputy Prime Minister. First, we made fun of his name. It’s the perfect Civil Servant title: starts with ‘Ass’ & ends in ‘Chair.’ We teased Asscher that he looked like the perennial young-man actor John Cusack. Cusack made ‘High Fidelity,’ a fine film. And Asscher made a priority of improving school infrastructure, a fine move. But then came the North-South Metro line, which – like Cusack’s ‘2012’ was WAY overbudget and deeply unsatisfying.

Lodewijk Asscher picked – as his political alter-ego – (former PM) J.P. Balkenende. He entered with ‘Folks, if you liked Balkenende 1-4 you’re going to love Balkenende 5!’ And – of course – I sat next to him, doing my impression of super-likeable Lodewijk Asscher. As it turned out, Asscher was not only a good improviser, but a good debater too. His Balkenende started attacking my Asscher as a weak-kneed Liberal, and I started attacking back. I was also happy to spell out the holes in Asscher’s arguments. Asscher said he’d liked President Obama, that ‘staying in Afghanistan was the right move.’ My Asscher said the same thing, but quickly added that ‘we, of course, pulled our troops out already…’