"To heck with them if they can't take a joke."

That is the highly expurgated version of a famous remark by entertainer Bette Middler, directed toward people who didn't "get" her campy act.

Well, who would have thought that the Divine Miss M would have become a political pundit?

Because it seems that all candidates and parties, at all levels of politics, have not so much lost their senses of humor as discarded them in favor of a new way of attacking their opponents.

They are using the very fact a candidate has a sense of humor against him. Take just two examples:

Democratic candidate Devin Romanul is under fire from the state GOP for a joking comment about drugs he made on a satirical talk show. Romanul, a Mansfield resident, is running against state Rep. Jay Barrows, R-Mansfield. His comment came on Boston News Net, a mock news show in the mode of "The Daily Show" or "The Colbert Report." Host Kristina Smarz, noting that Romanul played Frisbee golf in college, joked that it is "a well-known stoner sport." She then asked Romanul if he was "high right now." Romanul responded: "I wish it were so."

The audience laughed but not so the Republican Party, which would have voters believe Romanul wants to hand out Alice B. Toklas brownies in school cafeterias. Admittedly, the GOP tried to use a bit of wit in its response, saying Romanul would try to "earmark munchies" if he got elected. At this point, it was Romanul's turn to lose his sense of humor and respond with equal outrage to the notion that anyone would misinterpret his joking around.

And then there's well-known jokester John Forbes Kerry, who certainly should not give up his day job. The junior senator from Massachusetts repeated a line about how, if John McCain had to chose between boxers and briefs, he'd choose Depends. The result? You'd think Kerry wanted to put every senior citizen in America on an ice floe.

Once, wit was a valued component in an American politician's makeup. From Lincoln to Kennedy, a sharp sense of humor was considered an asset.

In the last week, one of the more heartening events in this grim campaign came with Sens. McCain and Barak Obama attending New York's annual Al Smith dinner and gleefully poking fun at one another and, more important, at themselves.

But now we are facing a danger that any joke that falls flat may be seen as a dreaded gaffe or give offense to one group or another and so drive any humor out of political discourse once and for all and leave it all to the professional comedians.

So it might be well to recall the words of American humorist Will Rogers from almost a century ago, who noted that he was just an amateur compared to professional politicians: "Every time they make a joke, it's a law, and every time they make a law, it's a joke."