Andy Borowitz is a funny guy -- especially when it comes to roasting Trump -- but his take on aviation safety shows there is risk to putting the GOP in charge

Andy Borowitz's comedy credentials are lengthy and impressive. The Washington Post has called him "America's finest fake-news creator and one of its sharpest political satirists." I have the good fortune to count Borowitz among my Facebook friends, and I can confirm that The Post nailed it on both counts.

It turns out that Borowitz also has a keen eye for serious subjects, providing incisive analysis on current events, public affairs, and politics. In fact, his commentary this week on aviation safety is one of the smartest takes I've seen on Sunday's fatal runway crash at New York City's LaGuardia Airport.

We will have more on that in a moment, but let's take a closer look at Borowitz's flair for the comedic, which has fueled his rise in the literary firmament.

One of my favorite activities each day is to scroll through the news feed on my Facebook page in search of the latest from Borowitz. Invariably, I am rewarded with several LOL-inducing gut-busters. In an age when many of us are fighting off Trump-induced PTSD, Borowitz's contributions to mental health are deeply appreciated. Here are some of his classics:

* The Baby Jesus was the last homeless person Republicans liked.

* Maybe this is crazy, but I think the right to own a gun is trumped by the right not to be shot by one.

* Give a man a fish, and he will eat for a day; give a man Twitter, and he will forget to eat and starve to death.

When it comes to skewering Donald Trump, nobody does it better than Borowitz. In fact, the only good thing about the Trump presidency is getting to revel in the almost-daily beatdown Borowitz administers to our "Putrid Pumpkin of a President." For example:

* The 30% who still approve of Trump are either in a coma or in his cabinet.

* Of all the heinous things Trump has done, I will never forgive him for making me side with Rupert Murdoch.

* So despite what Trump has been saying, Iran has not been talking to him about ending the war. You have to feel sorry for him. Usually when he wants to get out of a war he just visits a podiatrist

* Think about it . . . The Republicans have gone from Abraham Lincoln to Sarah Palin to Donald Trump. No wonder they don't believe in evolution.

Borowitz is a funny guy, but he has serious comedy cred. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College and was president of Harvard Lampoon, the university's 150-year-old undergraduate humor magazine. Alumni of Harvard Lampoon founded National Lampoon, which spawned a series of classic comedy movies, including Animal House, Vacation, and Caddyshack.

He created the sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, which launched Will Smith's career, and wrote for The Facts of Life TV series. In 1998, Borowitz became a contributing writer for The New Yorker magazine, and his essay -- "Emily Dickinson, Jerk of Amherst" -- was selected as one of the funniest pieces in the magazine's history.

In 2011, Library of America chose Borowitz to edit a book of American humor, The 50 Funniest American Writers: An Anthology from Mark Twain to The Onion. It was a best seller on the date of publication and became the No. 1 humor book in the United States, reaching the best-seller lists at The New York Times and  The Wall Street Journal.

As for Borowitz's serious side, his Facebook post dated 3/23/26 reflects his ability to tackle a subject straight off the front pages. It is so good, in fact, that I'm going to run it in full, with no additives from me. It includes a tad of humor, mostly in the form of well-timed digs at Donald Trump. But this is a work that would fit on any newspaper op-ed page. I learned a lot from it, and I think you will come away with a deeper appreciation for events leading to a tragedy on a New York runway. The basic theme: There are life-and-death costs to putting Republicans in charge. Borowitz writes:

Since airline safety is on the minds of many Americans traveling right now, it’s worth examining Donald Trump’s actions regarding it.

On the second day of his second term, Donald Trump fired the entire membership of the Aviation Security Advisory Committee.

You might wonder why Trump thought eliminating people who keep the skies safe was a good idea.

To the extent that Donald Trump has thoughts, they’re not original. His anti-immigrant rhetoric, for example, owes a debt to a prominent German political leader of the 1930s and '40s. And his decision to axe air-safety advisors calls to mind the wrecking ball that Ronald Reagan wielded on August 5, 1981, when he fired 11,345 air traffic controllers in one fell swoop.

For decades, anti-union Republicans have hailed Reagan’s draconian response to the strike by members of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) as the beginning of the end of the American labor movement. But it was also the beginning of a crisis in air safety.

Joseph A. McCartin, a Georgetown professor and author of Collision Course: Ronald Reagan, the Air Traffic Controllers, and the Strike That Changed America, writes, “Reagan’s decision to ban all strikers meant that it took years for the system to come back to its pre-strike staffing levels.” That system is still reeling.

According to a 2023 report, “Ensuring adequate staffing and training for air traffic controllers—an essential part of maintaining the safety and efficiency of the National Airspace System (NAS)—has been a challenge for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), especially at the Nation’s most critical facilities.”

Who issued this alarming report? The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Office of Inspector General. Trump purged over a dozen inspectors general early in his second term. Department of Transportation Inspector General Eric Soskin was among them.

There you go again.