Quote of the Day

Don't let anyone tell you that Joe Klein can't outdo himself:

Said TIME's Joe Klein: "comedy is by definition inappropriate. I mean, this is just comedy. And we're talking about a guy in Rush Limbaugh who is inappropriate half the time I hear him on the radio."

"He describes himself as an entertainer," said Klein. "Wanda Sykes -- entertainer. This is entertainment."

For a guy named Joeklein, he has a surprisingly inaccurate definition of comedy. Actually, comedy is defined as "something funny," by which Syke's comments manifestly fail.

Klein living up to his reputation is as newsworthy as "pigs still not flying" but James Taranto does a good job of providing some insight into the mindset which considers this humor:

By contrast, lots of left-wing bloggers are cheering Sykes on, and the president of the United States was visibly amused by her joke. So the question is this: Why do liberals find this joke funny when they should find it embarrassing?

The answer, it seems clear, is that this is an example of shock humor: a genre that relies on the frisson of violating taboos. By our count, Sykes runs afoul of five taboos in her Limbaugh joke: She equates dissent with treason. She likens a domestic political opponent to a foreign enemy. She makes fun of the disabled (Limbaugh's past addiction to painkillers would entitle him to protection under the Americans With Disabilities Act). She makes light of a form of interrogation that some people consider torture. And she wishes somebody dead.

Except for the last one, these are all taboos that liberals promote and enforce with especial vigor. If a conservative violated any one of them, he would be on the inside track to be named "Worst Person in the World" by that NBC blowhard (as indeed Feherty was).

What makes Sykes's joke funny to a liberal, then, is the sense of danger that accompanies her risky themes, combined with the secure knowledge that since the joke is at the expense of a liberal hate figure, the usual rules do not apply. It's the same reason people on the left evince particular glee when they attack Clarence Thomas or Michael Steele in expressly racist terms, or when they use antigay innuendo against their political opponents (regardless of the latter's sexual orientation).