Bill Maher at his best

...golf, hamburgers, and religion are all things that are incredibly bad for the environment.

Absurdly Strained Neutral POV

Brendan Nyhan wrote a ridiculous post, and it's ridiculous right from the title:

Liberals go soft on Sykes's Limbaugh "jokes"

Putting "jokes" in quotes implies that they aren't really jokes, and the rest of the title implies that they deserved being gone hard on, whatever that means. Such a title is not a good sign that the body of the post will be well thought out.

there's no avoiding the fact that what comedian Wanda Sykes said about Rush Limbaugh at the White House Correspondents Association dinner was loathsome

Fact? Loathsome?? Give me a break! Humor can only be loathsome when it mocks or humiliates the weak and powerless. The way Brendan describes it, one would think that Rush Limbaugh is a rape victim or a mentally retarded person - those would be likely targets of loathsome jokes - and not the man whose words make the most powerful Republican politicians soil their pants if they let slip a less-than-flattering opinion of him.

Adopting the language of GOP attacks on dissent since 9/11, Sykes equates Limbaugh's political speech with treason and compares him to a terrorist.

Um, no, Brendan, she satirizes him, making him the target of words paraphrasing his own. I don't think you'd get a good grade in an English class if you didn't recognize what was going on. That she is a comedian and was speaking as one at an event that was supposed to be comedic might be a hint, too.

Like many conservative talk show hosts, she also uses aggressive language expressing a desire for a political opponent to be physically harmed -- specifically for Limbaugh's kidneys to fail and for him to be waterboarded. This echoes the practice of many conservative hosts who make "jokes" about waterboarding liberals.

That's a patently fallacious comparison: those conservative talk show hosts were not joking when they said it, or at least I am not aware of any theory of humor that encompasses their statements. They were trash-talking or bullying, which a lot of people evidently confuse with joking, but I would hope that a PhD in political science wouldn't be among them. There is no discernible intent of irony, surprising incongruence, absurd, or exposing the target's hypocrisy in waterbording "threats" that come out of mouths of babes like Limbaughs and O'Reillys. They are just expressing aggression. By contrast, Sykes was obviously applying standard satirical forms. She "echoed" her targets' words, all right, but that's a standard tool of her trade. But Brendan is implying that the echoed words are morally equivalent to the originals. That is just absurd.

What's striking is how liberals -- who were frequently outraged about accusations of treason during the Bush years -- have sought to downplay Sykes's comments.

Wow! It is striking that people understand the difference between earnest accusations and jokes! Or between bullying and satire! How remarkable! Oh, wait... isn't it more striking that a professional analyst of political communication cannot tell the difference?

Of course, as Media Matters and Tapped's Adam Serwer pointed out, Limbaugh makes similarly offensive "jokes" on his show attacking dissent and comparing liberals to terrorists. And yes, he is far more powerful and influential than Sykes. But if it's wrong when Limbaugh does it, then it's wrong when Sykes does it too.

It would be if they were doing the same thing, but Brendan's pox on both their houses is logically similar to stating that if it is wrong to kill for material gain, then it's wrong to kill in self-defense. The fallacy is in asserting (without support and contrary to evidence) that two superficially similar acts are the same.

The hypocrisy here is staggering (especially in the Media Matters case).

The idiocy of Brendan's post is the only staggering phenomenon here. But it gets worse:

Imagine that a conservative comedian had accused Keith Olbermann of treason at the WHCA dinner back in 2004 and said he should be waterboarded. Would liberals have minimized the comments as "jokes" and catalogued all the offensive things Olbermann has said on his show? I don't think so.

That is extremely stupid, and Matt Yglesias aptly calls Brendan's bullshit:

But these aren’t symmetrical cases. Jokes advocating that conservative proponents of waterboarding should be subjected to waterboarding make a real political point, namely that this practice the right dismisses as “dunking” is, in fact, horrifying torture. The point of the joke is that this would be clear enough to Limbaugh if it was done to him. A comparable case, I guess, is if a conservative comedian were to say “if Keith Olbermann likes higher taxes on the wealthy so much, then he should have to pay higher income taxes, too!” But I don’t think Olbermann or his fans would find that particularly stinging since I take it he already understands the basic implications of Obama’s tax policies.

Brendan noted and quoted that, and had a chance to graciously say "Touché!" - but instead he just dug himself deeper:

First of all, it's not clear that Sykes was making a point about Limbaugh's support for waterboarding -- if that was her intent, she didn't make it especially obvious. The more general point was calling for physical harm to Limbaugh, which was quite clear

I can't believe this was written by the same guy whom I put on my blogroll. Last time I checked his blog, he had a brain. Where and when did he lose it?

Oh, by the way, Brendan didn't criticize the artistic value of Sykes' jokes anywhere in his post, so that issue is irrelevant to the discussion. But to prevent attacks on straw men, l'll say that I found the quoted jokes lame; however, my arguments do not depend on the artistic value of the jokes at all.

Good satire and lame satire

I disagree with Crooks and Liars' assessment of the SNL spoof of Keith Olberman. If the "Special Comment" had been the entire skit, it would have been great. Affleck got the angry Olbermann's voice and mannerism perfectly, and the absurd topic of the comment works well because it caricatures the fact that KO's Special Comments all look and sound very similar regardless of what he is talking about. But the rest of the skit didn't work, for two reasons. First, Affleck is not at all convincing as Olbermann in a "normal" mood. Second, and more important, the writing is poor. Reader RayC explains it perfectly in the comments:

In order for a good satire to be the most effective to me you need to take a bit of truth and stretch it to the breaking point. That "truth" is false so the bit fails. I think they missed on this one. The "truth" they seem to be lampooning is that Keith is outraged over trivial matters and cuts guests off before they can disagree. I have never seen him do either one of these things.

Now lame jokes are nothing unusual, so in itself it is not a big deal. But the ending proves that the writers know how to write a funny skit, so why did they fail in the first half? The most likely reason - pointed out in lilybelle's comment - is also the most worrisome:

It felt scripted so that some NBC exec could say "See, we criticize liberals too." If such false equivalence is the only motivation for a skit, bad comedy ensues.

If your goal is to make a lot of friends, perhaps satire is the wrong line of work for you.

A DHB in the WH!?

Seeing Obama's 5-8 point lead in the most recent tracking polls, I am changing from hopeful to optimistic that, after 28 years, we will have a Decent Human Being in the White House.

The last time a DHB was President:

• John Lennon's and Yoko Ono's (Just Like) Starting Over topped the Hot 100 chart;
  
• Bill Haley, Bob Marley, Hoagie Carmichael, Joe Louis, Albert Speer, Moshe Dayan, Nelson Algren, William Holden, and Natalie Wood were alive;
  
• Alicia Keys, Justin Timberlake, Josh Groban, Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, Jennifer Hudson, Jessica Alba, Elijah Wood, Natalie Portman, Anna Kournikova, Roger Federer, and Serena Williams were not born yet;
  
• The Space Shuttle had not been launched, computer viruses did not exist, and AIDS had not been described;
  
• The most advanced personal computer was Apple II Plus, with 48 kB of RAM, expandable to 64 kB;
  
• Moonraker was the latest James Bond film;
  
• Raiders of the Lost Ark had not been released;
  
• Tom Cruise had not appeared in any movie, and Tom Hanks' biggest claim to fame was playing Kip Wilson in the TV series Bosom Buddies;
  
• The head anchor of The CBS Evening News was Walter Cronkite;
  
• Wheel of Fortune was hosted by Chuck Woolery and Jeopardy! was off the air;
  
• Dynasty and Hill Street Blues were brand new shows, and the word "Smurf" meant nothing (unless you read Belgian comics);
  
• MTV did not exist; and
  
• Prince Charles was a bachelor.
  

Better than watching a stoning

Yesterday I went to a performance of Eric Idle's Not the Messiah (He's a Very Naughty Boy). Highly recommended, but if you are a Monty Python fan, of course you already know that, and if you are not, you probably stopped reading after the first sentence. It seems eerily appropriate that I had this religious experience on the same day I learned of Pontius "PZ" Myers' nailing of the cracker-man-God to a very dead tree splattered with ink.

But I worry... What if PZ made a mistake and crucified the wrong cracker, one that's the Body of Brian? I don't care if Brian was a very naughty boy, but hasn't he had enough painful deaths already? Wouldn't it render PZ's sacrilege, like, pointless? Wouldn't it invite death threats from the Judean People's Front People's Front of Judea? Was it irresponsible of PZ not to think of such unintended consequences? (On the bright side, PZ would then be known as Biggus Dickus.)

What Is... Election?

Apparently, John McCain has one thing in common with Yours Truly: he was a Jeopardy! champion. I didn't know that when I noted the coincidence of Ahmadinejad gaffes and I wish he paralleled the show not just in errors, but also in getting things right 99% of the time. But I repeat myself... Anyway, when the 43-year old news came out, a friend of mine suggested (or should I say sujested) that

Hillary is kicking herself for not suggesting a winner-take-all J! game between herself, Obama, and McCain

I thought such a game might go something like this:

Hillary: I'll take Fashion for $200, Alex.
Alex Trebek: Ken Starr obtained a bodily-fluid-stained blue dress which had belonged to this woman... Hillary?
Hillary: [expletive] [female canine] [more expletives]
Alex: Sorry, "[expletive] [female canine] [more expletives]" is incorrect. John?
John: [female canine], hee hee. That was an excellent question!
Alex: Sorry, you are not in South Carolina. Behave yourself. Barack?
Barack: Let me say that I respect John McCain's service to this country...
Alex: OK, you said it and your time is up. Hillary, select again.
Hillary: Let's go to Rhymes with "Cheating" for $200, you sexist jerk.
Alex: Give "five" to this banker of S&L infamy... John?
John: I'm gonna break your [expletive] neck, you mother[expletive]...
Alex: I think the judges are signaling this is not quite right...
John: Damn activist judges! I'll appeal to Alito, he'll say I'm right!
Alex: Barack?
Barack: Let me say that I deeply respect John McCain's military record...
Alex: Can we leave that for the interview? Hillary?
Hillary: Thank you. It is obvious that I am so far ahead that I can't lose this game. I can take a nap, wake up and still say who is Charles Kea...
Alex: Sorry, your time is up. But you select again.
Hillary: Let's go to Biblical Prophets for $1000, just to show you how much I value my faith.
John and Barack (shouting at the same time): Meeee tooooo!
Alex: He was "Wright" when he lamented and warned that Bablyonians would conquer Jerusalem... John?
John (singing absently): Bomb bomb bomb, bomb Babylon...
Alex: Not bad for an old guy, but dead wrong. I see Barack is trying to ring in, but Hillary beat him to it.
Hillary: I don't know, I just wanted to say that the next time Babylonians get to Jerusalem, you need me to pick up the phone at 3 AM.
Alex: When I call someone at 3 AM, I don't think of anyone like you. OK, Barack, you gonna say something finally?
Barack: I reject the premise of this question. He wasn't right at all. I mean, who the hell is this Jeremiah to think he can spew such nonsense...
Alex: That is correct! "Who... is... Jeremiah" is correct. That brings you up to $600 and first place. Hillary and John both have negative 1400, and we'll have to say goodbye to them. So you will be alone in Final Jeopardy to deal with this category: Unfortunate Middle Names. Clue in a moment.

Harrison Ford Could Be the NRA Spokesman

Not the NRA you think, though.

On May 13, Harrison Ford reached the Social Security Normal Retirement Age (NRA).

His next movie will be Indiana Jones and the Dentures of Methuselah.