Gracie Allen was one of the funniest people of the last century. Her basic routine was simple in principle but brilliant in execution. Someone would say something ordinary, and she would find a way to misinterpret it by understanding it in a way that was both entirely logical but utterly nuts. When she ran for president in 1940 as a publicity stunt, she famously said
I don't know much about the Lend-Lease Bill, but if we owe it we should pay it.
Here is a bit from the old Burns and Allen show. Allen is sitting in the living room sewing. Burns is sitting next to her, and shows her a sock with holes in it, which he demonstrates by putting his fingers through the holes.
Burns: Eh, look Gracie, you'd better sew this. My, uh, my fingers are sticking out.
Allen: Well, they won't if you wear it on your foot.
"Al Gore's statement of obtaining 100 percent of our power from renewables in 10 years has as much a chance of happening as the sun shining 24 hours a day," Lewandowski quipped. "It's nonsense."
Healy's comment is "Excellent." Me, I thought he could have done more with the joke, but no matter. You get the Gracie Allen joke, right? See, the guy says the sun does not shine all the time, when of course it does. Normal people say "to sun is shining" to mean that the sun can be seen shining, but Healy's joke is to take it literally. A good chuckle for the morning.
It is a joke, right? (If, like Healy, I were a Cork native, I would say "ah, you're joking me.")
