Republican Humor
3/15/07
by William Hessell

There has been precious little in national or international news during the past six years that can be considered truly humorous.  It's not just that the Republican administration has blindly and stupidly stumbled from repeated miss-steps to massive disasters in their handling of foreign affairs, but there is something about a Republican's sense of humor that is, well, strange.  Look at several recent examples, from a national gathering of conservatives.  Ann Coulter's attempt at humor included using a despicable term for gays to put down a political opponent, for no obvious reason other than she may dislike that he has a genuine smile, chooses not to slander his political rivals, and expresses real concern for the welfare of others.  Robert Ailes, Fox New's chief executive, put his sense of humor on display with a lengthy sequence of jokes that didn't go anywhere, including one confusing Barack Obama with Osama bin Laden.  The Republicans present reportedly did politely laugh.

Any real humor among the current group of conservative Republicans seems, in fact, to be unintended.  Calling Fox News, for instance, "fair and balanced" is really quite funny when you think about it.  That many conservative viewers do see it as being "fair and balanced" is even more funny, in a strange kind of way. And that Dick Cheney wants TV sets he may view to be programmed to only receive Fox news is really hilarious.  No wonder he has been 180 degrees wrong in almost every statement he has made about the progress of the war in Iraq.  Can you imagine being the person assigned to give Cheney a daily briefing on how he, Cheney, is being covered by the media?  That person would really have to learn to talk out of only one side of his mouth, even more than Cheney does.  There has to be some unintended humor, also, in George W. Bush calling himself a "compassionate conservative".  It sounds good, but anyone with an understanding of the word "compassion" knows that Bush's social policies have been anything but compassionate.  Similarly, anyone with an understanding of conservativism knows that Bush's fiscal policies have been anything but truly conservative.  If meaningless or even ludicrous statements are repeated often enough, some people are likely to believe them, and loyal Republicans seem to often fall into that trap.  Stock phrases like "stay the course" and "support the troops" have been repeated ad nauseum, without really considering the underlying effects and desirable options, until some voice on high decides its time to shift to a different mantra.  In a more functional political climate, both of the major opposing political parties should be deserving of respect.  There certainly can be legitimate differences between how sensible people would approach governmental problems.  It is exceedingly hard to respect the current crop of Republicans.  The G.O.P. seems to be only a faint shadow of the party of Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, or even Ronald Reagan.  Grand Old Party no longer fits.  Its leaders seem more like Guiltless Opportunistic Profiteers, its followers Gullible Obedient Partisans.  A new leader with a potential to change the downward pattern doesn't seem to be in sight.  I hope I am wrong.


PS -- In fairness, a similar diatribe could easily be unleashed about Democrats.  From the days of Will Rogers on, just calling the Democratic Party a unified "Party" is a bit of an oxymoron, and takes a real stretch of one's imagination.  Democrats rarely reach consensus on anything.  Seeing them currently trying to reach an agreement on an alternate to Bush's Iraq war policy is, unfortunately, laughable, but of course isn't really funny.  But that is a topic for another day.