{"id":9836,"date":"2007-02-05T13:55:13","date_gmt":"2007-02-05T18:55:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/9836.html"},"modified":"2007-02-05T13:55:13","modified_gmt":"2007-02-05T18:55:13","slug":"taking-conservative-comedy-seriously","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/taking-conservative-comedy-seriously\/","title":{"rendered":"Taking conservative comedy seriously"},"content":{"rendered":"

Townhall’s Doug Giles noted in his newest column<\/a> that when it comes to comedy, “Mr. and Mrs. Conservative, you must bow and kiss the Left’s ring. They slay us. You can count on one hand how many conservatives are making a semi-distinct blip on the comedic scene.” In the kind of piece one can only find at Townhall, Giles explores why the left is funnier than the right.<\/p>\n

Why can’t conservatives get their comedic act together? The liberals, on a 24\/7 basis, are tossing us soft balls that we should be driving out of the park in a humorous, prime time, way. It’s so easy it’s stupid. All we have to do is just read the crap that the left does, out loud, and it’s hilarious. We don’t even have to be that imaginative and try to develop quips, as they provide an endless supply of ammunition. We couldn’t make up the stuff they do even if we wanted to — no one on the planet is that creative. <\/p>\n

The secular left is an amalgam of mayhem, a veritable Star Wars bar scene, a rogue gallery of freaks, geeks, nuts, sluts, slick politco’s and skanky ho’s — and we’re letting them walk without skewering the living day lights out of them. <\/p>\n

What’s wrong with us? We’ve become nicer than Christ.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yes, this really is his explanation. He went on to say conservative comics are “politically correct,” “too nice,” and unwilling to “deliver the dig.” Much of Giles’ piece seems vaguely tongue-in-cheek — it helps underscore the point about the right having a problem with humor — but on the point that mean ol’ liberals are funnier because conservatives are too polite, Giles did not appear to be kidding.<\/p>\n

Now, it seems to me that those on the right who try to be funny fall short because they’re vicious and hateful. Limbaugh, for example, thinks it’s funny to make fun<\/a> of someone suffering from Parkinson’s disease. At the 2004 RNC, Republican activists thought it’d be funny to mock U.S. troops<\/a> injured in battle. “Nicer than Christ”? Um, no.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, Giles implores the conservative movement to take comedy seriously.
\n<\/p>\n

Conservatives, obviously, don’t think comedy is important. The Daily Show and The Colbert Report don’t have The Factor numbers. Thus, they don’t seem to be as important as O’Reilly, or Rush or Hannity in an immediate sense. And they’re not. However, Steve and John do have the ear of millions of 18-35 year olds, who will, uh . . . hello, be at the wheel driving this nation a few short years from now. That’s kinda significant.<\/p>\n

The Right is foolish and stupid to not be knocking themselves out to compete for the belly laughs of this demographic. Blowing off this bunch that’s not listening to conservative talk radio, watching Bill [O’Reilly], or logging on to TownHall.com is to diss a crowd that will, in short order, be influencing our nation after you take the big dirt nap, conservative mom and dad.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It appears that Giles’ concerns have become more widespread. Indeed, Fox News is reportedly poised to launch a new late-night talk show called “Red Eye,” hosted by former UK Maxim editor Greg Gutfeld. Here’s the cutting-edge humor<\/a> viewers can look forward to.<\/p>\n

In a clip of “Red Eye” that was leaked online, Gutfield leads a discussion about Sen. Joe Biden’s (D-DE) racially-insensitive claim that Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) is “the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean.” In the clip, Gutfield calls Biden “my favorite person in the world,” and asks, “Isn’t [Biden] saying what every liberal is thinking,” that “Obama is acceptable because he’s\u2026a non-threatening black man.”<\/p>\n

Also, panelists on the show rejected the notion that Obama is the first “clean” mainstream African-American. “Well, I think Oprah’s clean,” one said. “She does douche,” said another. He added, “I was told I was allowed to say the D-word,” suggesting the comment had been cleared by Fox officials.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Hilarious, isn’t it?<\/p>\n

Giles concluded, “One of the reasons why some young people no likey conservatives is because no one is making them look at the Left and then laugh their butts off at them.”<\/p>\n

Keep trying, Giles. Keep trying.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Townhall’s Doug Giles noted in his newest column that when it comes to comedy, “Mr. and Mrs. Conservative, you must bow and kiss the Left’s ring. They slay us. You can count on one hand how many conservatives are making a semi-distinct blip on the comedic scene.” In the kind of piece one can only […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9836"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9836\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}