IS PRESIDENT OBAMA in trouble with his late-night comedy base?

It’s likely he hasn’t noticed or doesn’t care. He is, after all, in the midst of his oft-invoked “full plate” of supposedly “defining moments” in his presidency - a “defining” decision on Afghanistan, “defining” legislative battle on health care, among other “defining” things.

But there is perhaps another more subtle set of “defining” episodes playing out for Mr. Obama in the televised comedy salons that had previously, by and large, been relatively gentle spaces for him. The bits about him are getting harsher. They are no longer just gentle gibes about Bo the dog, big ears, bad bowling and beer summits.

A conspicuous (if not “defining”) episode occurred October 3 on the comedy show Saturday Night Live in a skit set in the Oval Office. The president (played by Fred Armisen) was defending his record against critics who had accused him of turning the United States “into something that resembles the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany.” Not so, protested the faux-Bama.

“When you look at my record, it’s very clear what I’ve done so far,” he said. “And that is nothing.”

The sketch went on to show Mr. Obama/Armisen running through a checklist of things he had vowed to do - closing Guantanamo Bay prison, overhauling health care. All were marked, Not Done.

From the outset, Mr. Obama has been praised as someone who “gets late night,” whose ironic and self-deprecating humor is well-suited to the genre’s sensibilities. He was the first sitting president to appear as a guest of Jay Leno’s and David Letterman’s, America’s most popular late-night talk show hosts. “You ignore their influence at your peril,” said Dan Pfeiffer, the White House’s deputy communications director. “They are often leading indicators of where the narrative is headed.”

But recent indicators could be proving ominous. There has been a proliferation of jokes that feed on - or are fed by - a resuscitated old narrative against the president that goes back to last year’s campaign when both John McCain and Hillary Clinton tried to portray Mr. Obama as a gifted orator who accomplishes little.

Recently, the comedian Jon Stewart advanced the Saturday Night Live “do nothing” theme on his nightly satirical news program, “The Daily Show.” It began as a standard Stewart video-clip juxtaposition of Mr. Obama promising to end the military’s policy of expelling gay men and lesbians. It continued with clips from the ensuing months of Defense Secretary Robert Gates and National Security Adviser Jim Jones saying they had not yet gotten around to reversing the policy, citing Mr. Obama’s “full plate” of business.

What followed was Mr. Stewart, exasperated with a man he had supported, throwing his hands up and essentially imploring the president to, you know, do something. “All that stuff you’ve been putting on your plate?” Mr. Stewart said. “It’s [expletive] chow time, brother. That’s how you get things off your plate.”

After a roar of laughter and applause from the audience, Mr. Stewart reminded Mr. Obama that “You are president of the United States.” It sounded like something between a liberal call to action or cry for help.

Jeff Nussbaum, a Democratic speech and joke writer, disagrees that late-night comedy is a leading indicator of a cultural zeitgeist. “To use an economic term, it is more of a lagging indicator,” he said.

By and large, the bulk of late-night jokes directed at the president are not personal. “The jokes are still largely about things like how the media lionizes Obama, or what the opposition is saying about him,” said Bob Lichter, of George Mason University’s Center for Media and Public Affairs in Virginia, who has tracked themes in late-night humor since 1988.

Mr. Lichter said at the very least, the Saturday Night Live skit provided a comic articulation of a potentially devastating message: “The danger is that Mr. Obama is going to be defined by inaction and not living up to expectations,” he said.


Jon Stewart, Jay Leno and David Letterman are growing critical of President Obama in their comedy.

JASON DECROW/ASSOCIATED PRESS / President Obama visited Jon Stewart’s satirical news show in 2007, a forum many felt was conducive to Mr. Obama’s personality.