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June 18, 2008
You know who isn't a very funny satirist?
Al Franken.
You know who that benefits?
Mitt Romney Sen. Norm Coleman.
The Washington Post runs an op-ed today in which columnist Michael Gerson nukes Al Franken from orbit. While we morons have long known that Franken is a talentless hack who owes whatever "fame" he has to a highly effective Haitian chicken-sacrificing voodoo pact with Baron Samedi, it appears that Franken's complete lack of talent has become so obvious that even the MSM has been forced to acknowledge it.
Satire has been called "punishment for those who deserve it." Writers from Erasmus to Jonathan Swift to George Orwell have used humor, irony and ridicule to expose the follies of the powerful, the failures of blind ideology and the comic weakness of human nature itself.
So what is Franken's "provocative, touching and funny" contribution to the genre? Consider his article in Playboy magazine titled "Porn-O-Rama!" in which he enthuses that it is an "exciting time for pornographers and for us, the consumers of pornography." The Internet, he explains, is a "terrific learning tool. For example, a couple of years ago, when he was 12, my son used the Internet for a sixth-grade report on bestiality. Joe was able to download some effective visual aids, which the other students in his class just loved." Franken goes on to relate a soft-core fantasy about women providing him with sex who were trained at the "Minnesota Institute of Titology."
Orwell would be so proud.
It's nice to see Franken being hoisted on his own retard (I know...don't e-mail me) for a change.
But what's even more interesting is this: it's one of the few times in recent memory that a liberal "entertainer"/"personality"(assuming one grants that Franken is one or has the other) has seen his invocation of the "satire" defense so thoroughly discredited by a typically left-wing newspaper.
Does anybody here remember Amanda "Godbags" Marcotte? Like Franken, when word of her vile "contributions" to the nation's political conversation gained widespread attention, she too played the "satire" card. Because, being morons, after all, we conservalibertaricans are obviously not nuanced enough to understand the subtleties of bashing the Virgin birth any more than we can understand the layers of complex thinking that led to Franken's production of the "Porn-O-Rama" article.
The difference is that I don't recall the major papers making an issue of Marcotte's comments. That was a story that was pushed by blogs and bloggers, and in many instances when they did touch on the controversy, the media reported on the substance of Marcotte's remarks only obliquely. In any event, even without the interest of the MSM, Marcotte became a political liability and ultimately resigned from the John Edwards campaign.
Franken isn't being given that luxury. The WashPo shows that it's willing to hold Franken to a different standard, almost as if he were a Republican or something.
And that's a welcome development. Not just for the quality of future political discourse, but because Orwell and Swift were hella good satirists.
They don't deserve to be forced to keep company with the Marcotte's and Franken's of the world. It's nice to see the Post can recognize when the line has been crossed too.
posted by Jack M. at
04:39 AM
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