Thoughts on Bill Clinton and Comedy Central, from Mark Steyn:
Bill Clinton energetically on the stump, summoning all his elder statesman’s dignity (please, no giggling) in the cause of comparing tea partiers to Timothy McVeigh. Oh, c’mon, they’ve got everything in common. They both want to reduce the size of government, the late Mr. McVeigh through the use of fertilizer bombs, the tea partiers through control of federal spending, but these are mere nuanced differences of means, not ends. Also, both “Tim” and “Tea” are three-letter words beginning with “T”: Picture him upon your knee, just Tea for Tim and Tim for Tea, you’re for him and he’s for thee, completely interchangeable. To lend the point more gravitas, President Clinton packed his reading glasses and affected his scholarly look, with the spectacles pushed down toward the end of his nose, as if he’s trying to determine whether that’s his 10 a.m. intern shuffling toward him across the broadloom or a rabid armadillo Al Gore brought along for the Earth Day photo op.
Will it work? For a long time, tea partiers were racists. Everybody knows that when you say “I’m becoming very concerned about unsustainable levels of federal spending,” that’s old Jim Crow code for “Let’s get up a lynching party and teach that uppity Negro a lesson.” Frank Rich of the New York Times attempted to diversify the tea-party racism into homophobia by arguing that Obamacare’s opponents were uncomfortable with Barney Frank’s sexuality. I yield to no one in my discomfort with Barney Frank’s sexuality, but, with the best will in the world, I find it hard to blame it for more than the first 4 or 5 trillion dollars of federal overspending. Eschewing such cheap slurs, Time’s Joe Klein said opposition to Obama was “seditious,” because nothing says sedition like citing the U.S. Constitution and quoting Thomas Jefferson. Unfortunately for Klein, thanks to “educator” William Ayers’s education reforms, nobody knows what “seditious” means anymore.
It’s all like that. Few people can write so entertainingly about such serious subjects (though Lileks can give him a run for his money).
Wow, that’s great writing.
“I yield to no one in my discomfort with Barney Frank’s sexuality, but, with the best will in the world, I find it hard to blame it for more than the first 4 or 5 trillion dollars of federal overspending.”
Too funny.
If you haven’t read his books, you should. He is good. Too bad media execs don’t read them. They might learn something.
Even funnier to listen to, I think; the bon mot overlaid by the accent. I’d give my left hind leg to eavesdrop on a conversation between Steyn and Iowahawk.
That’s what I call “hip,” “edgy,” “cutting-edge” comedy
This brought to mind a radio interview I heard yesterday with Sarah Silverman. Terry Gross *shudder* was going on and on about how “edgy” Silverman’s comedy is and Silverman was tacitly agreeing with her. Much as Steyn yields to no one in his discomfort with Barney Frank’s sexuality, I yield to no one in my appreciation of potty humor — one of Silverman’s mainstays, along with constant reference to “Jews” — and, frankly, I don’t find Silverman “edgy” in the least. I find her extremely conventional in a Hollywood Leftist sort of way (can you say “hipster”?) and, as a result, not funny. The only funny thing about her act is the extent to which those who think she’s the best thing since Lenny Bruce are bending over backwards to reinforce stereotypes — “She’s a Jew and she’s doing jokes about The Holocaust! Edgy! She’s a girl and she’s doing scatological and genital humor! Even edgier! Transgressive, even! This sure is going to make those Christianists uncomfortable. That’s what makes it so funny!”
Silverman, a Comedy Central darling, is not cutting edge — her bits aren’t even very smart. Comedy Central is not, nor has it ever been, cutting edge. The rise of South Park has everything to do with Trey Parker and Matt Stone and nothing to do with any inciteful understanding of comedy on the part of Comedy Central. The network’s willingness to fold on this Mohammed business is completely understandable.
I just heard that Carville called Palin a Reptile.
If irony causes cancer, Carville will be dead in six weeks.
When you look like a fucking unskinned extra out of the original ‘V’ series, you should keep your pie-hole shut.
“I just heard that Carville called Palin a Reptile.
If irony causes cancer, Carville will be dead in six weeks.”
That is funny. Dennis Miller once called Carville “the only snake-oil salesman who actually looks like a snake.”