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" The tagline of FX&amp;#039;s newest show, Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell (which premiered last night after Louie), &amp;quot;Who is W. Kamau Bell?&amp;quot; may not seem the most obvious way to pull in viewers. But it&amp;#039;s a fair enough question. So we&amp;#039;ll go ahead and answer it: He&amp;#039;s a surprisingly sharp comedian whose social/political jokes impressed Chris Rock enough that he wanted to put Bell on TV. (When you&amp;#039;re Chris Rock, you can just do that.) We talked to Bell over the phone about the election, his evolving love for President Obama, and, naturally, Chick-fil-A. ESQUIRE.COM:/&amp;amp;gt; Is Totally Biased going to be all about politics? W. KAMAU BELL: It depends on your definition of politics. It&amp;#039;s going to be topical, but it&amp;#039;s not going to be about the individuals in politics every day. It&amp;#039;ll be my take on what the culture is doing wrong. Like Chick-fil-A. That&amp;#039;s a gay-marriage thing, and to me, it&amp;#039;s a very interesting issue. But whether it&amp;#039;s defined as politics is for other people to say. ESQ: I was going to mention Chick-fil-A. Is that something you&amp;#039;ll be able to make fun of, or does the timing doom you? WKB: There are always topical things you can talk about without being topical to the day, and that&amp;#039;s how my act has been structured. People label me a political comedian, but I tend to start with something I care about a lot, not something in the headlines.  ESQ: Is it too much of a spoiler to ask what you think about this Chick-fil-A nonsense? WKB: I lived in San Francisco for fifteen years, so I don&amp;#039;t have any fear of gay marriage ruining civilization. I just wish we weren&amp;#039;t debating gay marriage in the parking lot of a fast-food joint. If we&amp;#039;re going to debate gay marriage at Chick-fil-A, then the results should count. Like, if we can boycott Chick-fil-A enough that it closes, then gay marriage should be legal. ESQ: Is preparing for your show forcing you to devour massive amounts of political news, or is that something you&amp;#039;ve always done? WKB: Since Obama entered the presidential race, I&amp;#039;ve been paying attention, mostly because I can&amp;#039;t not. But I&amp;#039;m not the guy who treats politics the way people treat fantasy baseball. I&amp;#039;m not that guy. ESQ: How has your opinion of Obama evolved? WKB: The joke I say on stage is that I love Obama \u2014 I&amp;#039;m just not in love with him anymore. That doesn&amp;#039;t mean I&amp;#039;m not going to vote for him. He&amp;#039;s certainly the better choice. But there are two types of political discussions. Is Obama a better choice than Mitt Romney? Absolutely. It&amp;#039;s not worth discussing. Can Obama be a better president? Absolutely. It&amp;#039;s not worth discussing. ESQ: You&amp;#039;ve also said on stage that you would&amp;#039;ve loved someone to challenge Obama. WKB: I would have loved if someone had been the fiscal conservative, social liberal in the way some younger members of the GOP are. If that person had stepped up, it would have really made Obama dig deep. I don&amp;#039;t think he&amp;#039;s going to have to dig deep against Romney. I know right now they say they&amp;#039;re neck-and-neck, but I feel like that&amp;#039;s going to change once the debates start. Basically, Obama is just going to have to stand on the stage and look at Romney and look at America and be like, &amp;quot;Really?&amp;quot; ESQ: That would be fantastic. He should try that. WKB: Then that ten percent of independents would be like, &amp;quot;You&amp;#039;re right. I don&amp;#039;t know what I was thinking.&amp;quot; Speaking off the cuff isn&amp;#039;t exactly Mitt Romney&amp;#039;s strong suit. He&amp;#039;s got a lot of suits, but that&amp;#039;s not one of them. ESQ: That aspect of his personality, and so many others, seem like they could be easily mined for you show. He&amp;#039;s such a damn goofball.  WKB: And such an unconscious goofball. There&amp;#039;s nothing better than a goofball who&amp;#039;s like, &amp;quot;Oh, I know.&amp;quot; George W. Bush played that role pretty well. But Romney \u2014 he&amp;#039;s so unconscious about it that it&amp;#039;s a little painful. ESQ: Did you think he was going to be the nominee all along? WKB: I didn&amp;#039;t. He was sort of like Kerry. He was the guy who&amp;#039;s been running for president for a while now. His tax form probably says presidential candidate. ESQ: Too bad you didn&amp;#039;t have a show during the primary. WKB: We&amp;#039;ve had that moment a lot in the last few weeks. &amp;quot;We&amp;#039;re about to be on the air! What if Chick-fil-A decides they love gay people?&amp;quot; ESQ: The GOP vice-president nominee is something you can probably have fun with.  WKB: There&amp;#039;s always something. Who knew, a month ago, that we were all going to say the words Chik-fil-A so often without being employees of Chick-fil-A? ESQ: Do you think one of the names getting kicked around for VP is the most joke-worthy?&amp;amp;lt;?p&amp;amp;gt; WKB: I kind of feel like they&amp;#039;re in a bad spot, because they&amp;#039;re not going to pick that wild card like Palin.  ESQ: Who would that be? Rubio? WKB: Yeah. Rubio would be funny, because Americans would learn there&amp;#039;s a difference between a Latino who&amp;#039;s Cuban and a Latino who&amp;#039;s Mexican. America doesn&amp;#039;t really understand that distinction. But I don&amp;#039;t really have a stake in who wins. People ask, &amp;quot;Won&amp;#039;t it better for your comedy if Mitt Romney wins?&amp;quot; No. It&amp;#039;s like a carpenter. I make chairs no matter what&amp;#039;s happening. I make jokes no matter what&amp;#039;s happening. They&amp;#039;re just different jokes.  ESQ: It might even be better for you if Obama wins.  WKB: Here&amp;#039;s the thing: I think it would be for the for the universe if Obama wins. Ultimately, I&amp;#039;m on the side of the universe over my act. I&amp;#039;ll let my act figure it out.  ESQ: That&amp;#039;s incredibly selfless of you.  WKB: A lot of comics claimed to be political comedians when George W. Bush was in office just by calling him an idiot. For me, Obama is actually more interesting comically, because not everybody can figure it out.  ESQ: And you&amp;#039;ve said you feel more invested in Obama because he&amp;#039;s the first black president. WKB: It&amp;#039;s all about how I personally feel. That&amp;#039;s where everything starts. I&amp;#039;m invested in Obama&amp;#039;s presidency in a way that I could never be invested in Mitt Romney&amp;#039;s presidency. It&amp;#039;s very possible that, if Mitt Romney became president, I would cease to be identified as a political comedian. With Obama, every time he&amp;#039;s on TV, it&amp;#039;s like seeing one percent of myself on TV. ESQ: So that I have it on record: Obama will win the election? WKB: Yeah. It&amp;#039;ll be tight, because Obama isn&amp;#039;t the rock star he used to be. But he&amp;#039;s like every rock star. The debut album was big, and the second album we&amp;#039;ll just have to see about.  ESQ: It&amp;#039;s hard to avoid that sophomore slump. WKB: It&amp;#039;s just endemic to the way things work.  Follow The Culture Blog on RSS and on Twitter at @ESQCulture. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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