or Powell's or me• • •
"Mike and Jon, Jon and Mike—I've known them both for years, and, clearly, one of them is very funny. As for the other: truly one of the great hangers-on of our time."—Steve Bodow, head writer, The Daily Show
•
"Who can really judge what's funny? If humor is a subjective medium, then can there be something that is really and truly hilarious? Me. This book."—Daniel Handler, author, Adverbs, and personal representative of Lemony Snicket
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"The good news: I thought Our Kampf was consistently hilarious. The bad news: I’m the guy who wrote Monkeybone."—Sam Hamm, screenwriter, Batman, Batman Returns, and Homecoming
December 17, 2004
Bill O'Reilly Has Me Stymied
It's a common complaint that it's hard to satirize the world, because no matter how hard you try, you can't outdo reality. I had this feeling as I read this about Bill O'Reilly (from Media Matters, via Atrios):
In response to reports that actor and comedian Chevy Chase called President Bush a "dumb fuck" while co-hosting a December 14 People For the American Way awards ceremony in Washington, DC, FOX News host Bill O'Reilly asserted on the December 16 O'Reilly Factor that "you don't see this kind of thing on the right." He added: "You don't see prominent conservatives cursing out Democratic members of Congress, for example."
No, you don't see it, unless of course you consider the Vice President of the United States to be a "prominent conservative."
So O'Reilly claiming this is sort of like him claiming these things:
• "You don't see prominent conservatives who used to work for Halliburton, for example."
• "You don't see prominent conservatives invading Iraq, for example."
• "You don't see prominent conservatives with names like Bill O'Reilly, for example."
But as you can tell, none of that is really satisfying. Bill O'Reilly has gone head to head with satire, and won.
It reminds me of Mark Twain's famous comment about General Frederick Funston, one of the leaders of the US conquest of the Philippines:
No satire of Funston could reach perfection, because Funston occupies that summit himself. In his own person Funston is satire incarnated, and exhaustively comprehensive: he is a satire on the human race.
UPDATE: Bob Harris got here first.
Posted at December 17, 2004 06:40 PM | TrackBackThe key to understanding O'Reilly's comment is in his clever phrasing: he didn't say, "Prominent conservatives don't curse out Democrats," he said "you don't see" conservatives behaving that way. I guess he was overly optimistic in saying "you" instead of "we," as if the audience to which he was addressing his remark would be made up entirely of conservatives with a similar see-no-evil, admit-no-error policy. But I think he's made it very clear that he, for one, does not see such things. It's not his fault that the insidious liberal media overlords, and people like you, Jon, insist on using your eyes in treasonous ways.
Posted by: inkywretch at December 18, 2004 09:06 AMinkywretch,
You think you're "joking," but I beg to differ. I've been amused and appalled to encounter the insane linguistic hair-splitting that conservatives will used to defend their leaders. Anything to prevent an admission they lied.
Also, my eyes have been committing treason for many years, and I appreciate you pointing this out.
Posted by: Jonathan Schwarz at December 20, 2004 04:24 AM
