You can't make up anything anymore. The world itself is a satire. All you're doing is recording it.

Art Buchwald (1925–2007) was a long-running American newspaper humorist and political satirist, best known for his syndicated column that skewered Washington culture and public life. The remark reflects a recurring theme in late-20th-century political comedy: that real events had become so absurd, polarized, or media-driven that satire struggled to exaggerate them. Buchwald often framed his work as less “inventing jokes” than selecting and arranging the day’s headlines into comic form—an attitude shaped by decades of observing politics, bureaucracy, and public relations from close range.

Buchwald is arguing that modern reality has outpaced the satirist’s imagination. If the world “itself is a satire,” then the comedian’s task is no longer to fabricate absurdity but to document it—highlighting contradictions, hypocrisy, and unintended consequences already present in public life. The line also implies a critique of institutions and media ecosystems that normalize the ridiculous: when outrageous behavior becomes routine, satire shifts from exaggeration to curation. In that sense, the quote defends satire as a form of truth-telling—recording reality in a way that makes its underlying irrationality visible.