Last week we did a whole program about how presidential campaigns and show business have kind of intertwined and cross-fertilized  to create a new hybrid form. And that was before we watched a star of "West Wing" on the floor of the Democratic Convention in Boston .
 
But as soon as we wrapped that show, the news made me realize that it isn't just presidents and would-be presidents who are turning themselves into comedians, performers, tumblers, lounge acts.
 
It's governors, too.
 
Arnold Schwarzenegger  reminded us vividly that he had been a performer   for 25 years before he was ever a politician.
 
Going after his political opponents in a California  budget fight a speech at a giant shopping mall, Schwarzenegger didn't engage in any of the usual political mudslinging about lies or corruption or extreme views.The governor of California used the epithet “Girlie Men." The remark didn't upset or appall me, but it did interest me deeply. Because this wasn't ordinary political “name-calling.” It was a kind of double-reverse backflip pseudo -name-calling.

What Schwarzenegger did was borrow a deliberately silly slur from a old Saturday Night live sketch -- ”girlie man” was invented as a piece of pidgin English for Hans and Franz, characters played by Dana Carvey and Kevin Nealon who were parodies of Arnold Schwarzenegger and his smarmy, snarky, Austrian-macho-man style.

 
I think the governor's remark was kind of a genius political gesture. Because he was both criticizing his opponents and pretending to criticize them, coming across as good-natured and making fun of himself  at the same time.
 
Even better for his purposes, the people who rose up automatically to take offense, accusing him of homophobia and sexism, wound up looking humorless and silly. What's more, the big California budget battle was promptly resolved.
 
Can you imagine either of the men running for president right now executing or conceiving such a shrewd bit of political theater?
 
But it isn't just a beloved Republican governor who's been making a spectacle of himself, with tongue in cheek, by borrowing a  piece of pop culture camp from another decade.
 
Earlier this month at the big annual regional security summit in Indonesia , in front of foreign ministers from all over Asia , the U.S. Secretary of State got on stage and performed. Colin Powell wore a hard hat and hooked a hammer on his belt and sang the gay '70s disco hit, “YMCA,” by the Village People.
 
Absolutely amazing. And slightly disconcerting -- because  what is there left for actual satire to do when its natural subjects,  celebrated political figures, start engaging in spectacular self -satire?