Mark Russell, who musically satirized politics for half a century, died at years old last week from prostate cancer at his home in Washington, D.C.
"Oh both sides of a question I can speak with rash impunity and I can sing a different song and please each damn community," Russell sang in this parody of a"Pirates of Penzance" song about political pandering."I plan to say what pleases every kind of resident until I count enough of them to vote for me as president.
He once said that Democrats and Republicans both think the"other has no sense of humor. They are both wrong," the Post reported. "Mark Russell was a D.C. institution who did the hardest thing a comic can do: relentlessly and righteously mock his neighbors," Jon Stewart said in a statement, according to the Hollywood Reporter. Comedian Lewis Black called Russell an"extraordinarily talented satirist with a unique comic voice. He had a rapier wit. Which are words I rarely use to describe a comedian.
In the 1990s, he also milked former President Clinton’s scandal with Monica Lewinsky and his impeachment for material, including the song,"When you Wish Upon Ken Starr." While Russell wrote his own material, he once wryly replied to the question: "Oh yes, I have 535 writers. One hundred in the Senate and 435 in the House of Representatives."
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