Digby has an impressive post up from last Saturday that I think needs some more attention.
I'll provide some excerpts from his post (do read it all) and then a personal anecdote from a recent email exchange of mine with one of the National Review guys.
As a bonus there's a pretty funny joke involved but you'll have to follow me below the fold to view it!
In a post title "Mean Girls" Digby begins with this:
Ezra took Jonah Goldberg to task for his egregious Gore trivia column this week-end but I don't think he goes far enough. Jonah clearly thought this would be an entertaining riff for his little circle jerk to giggle over as they sipped their frappucinos, but I think it's actually a perfect example of the symbiosis between the wingnut noise machine and the robotic mainstream media, which Jonah Goldberg (!) now embodies.
He goes on with this take on the difference between the ridicule provided by our satirists and the right's taunters (is that a word?):
As a card carrying member of the rightwing noise machine Goldberg is very aware that trivializing Democrats is helpful to his cause. His harpy mother made a career out of it. And he is also aware that ridicule and cheesy gossip are very effective ways to make liberals' appear to be insubstantial and beside the point. It gets people's attention in ways that other forms of criticisms don't. The cartoonizing of Democratic politicians is one of their most effective tools and we've made a grave error in not better understanding it and using the same methods to equalize the playing field.
Here on the blogs we have some masterful voices of ridicule and Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are liberal heroes for the same reason. Wr have tons of biting, dizzyingly precise take-down artists on our side. But none of these themes seem to capture the mainstream media as do the wingnut themes and I have concluded that it is because they are too sophisticated. Just like Goldberg and his frappucino sipping sycophants, we too entertain ourselves with this stuff. But unlike them, we only entertain ourselves. They entertain the press.
The right specializes in schoolyard taunts and sleazy gossip because they must attract the stupid vote in order to get elected and that's the only humor stupid voters understand. But it's also because it's what the media prefers --- they too have to attract the masses.
Emphasis mine
I deliberately stated our "satirists" and their "taunters" because I agree with Digby. I believe they mainly try to see how far they can push it, taunting liberals at every opportunity and then crying, "It's just a joke, get a sense of humor!" if there's any complaining. I present Ann Coulter as Exhibit A.
Digby continues:
And it's not just the cranks and the professional provocateurs like Coulter. Remember this?
U.S. Sen. Trent Lott today told an enthusiastic Neshoba County Fair crowd that Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry is "a French-speaking socialist from Boston, Massaschusetts, who is more liberal than Ted Kennedy."
Imagine if Ted Kennedy had used similar stereotyping and said "George Bush is a slow-talking hillbilly from the old confederacy who is more racist than Strom Thurmond." Do you even want to think about the uproar? (And has any Democratic politican in recent years said anything close to that?)
...
If someone from Massachusetts had said anything, they would have been told to lighten up. It's only a little gentle ribbing. God you Democrats are a bunch of frail little wusses. How can you protect America? Meanwhile, you're walking on the fighting side of Trent if you go after him with stereotypical taunts about southern culture. They can play into all these subterranean psychological currents, but nobody else can. Works great. For them.
Digby goes on to say how our sophisticated humor may be too high brow for the masses:
We could play their game too, but it's very difficult for liberals over the age of twenty to get in touch with their inner seventh grade asshole. I'm not sure why, but we seem to prefer a more subtle form of humor. I suspect it could be because of this:
Unfortunately, neither Digby or I have a solution. He concludes with this:
What do we do about it? I don't know. But we can't pretend that the press' willingness to run with this puerile crapola for their own amusement doesn't hurt us. We would like to stop them by appealing to their better natures, but that hasn't exactly worked out. And now they are behaving like shocked little schoolmarms that the left is "angry" about what they've done. It appears that no matter what happens --- even Armageddon apparently --- they are going to run with the breathless, sophomoric Democratic narrative the Republicans created. And they are too powerful to ignore.
So perhaps we should think about how to give them what they want: a Republican narrative that appeals to their seventh grade sensibilities. I throw this out there for you to discuss. (I'm going to have to have an aspirin and coke and listen to "Last Train To Clarksville" before I can properly get into the mood.)
How say you, Kosville?
As for my personal experience demonstrating this very issue (from last week no less), it came after perusing the Corner for the latest silly talking point we were going to here from them. I came upon a "funny" little blurb from that hilarious John Podhertz.
But Did He Mount Everest? [John Podhoretz]
The ability to see clips like this from a local newscast is why we should all fall to our knees and thank Al Gore for inventing the Internet.
Posted at 2:52 PM
Now I'm tired as hell at seeing this stupid talking point still being bandied around by the right. So I went to a source that there's no way he could call bias and sent him a nice little email calling him on it:
I know it won't change anything, but the truth is that Al Gore never said he "invented the internet". A retraction or explanation to your readers would be nice, but I doubt any such thing will be forthcoming. After all, it's too fun a narrative to let go, regardless of it's honesty, right?
http://www.snopes.com/...
Claim: Vice-President Al Gore claimed that he "invented" the Internet.
Status: False.
Origins: Despite the derisive references that continue even today, Al Gore did not claim he "invented" the Internet, nor did he say anything that could reasonably be interpreted that way. The "Al Gore said he 'invented' the Internet" put-downs were misleading, out-of-context distortions of something he said during an interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN's "Late Edition" program on 9 March 1999.
...
I didn't really expect too much of a response, but I got one and can you guess what it said? I bet you can...
it's called a JOKE. Jesus H. Christ. Get a sense of humor.
What a surprise. I just didn't get the JOKE! Damn, how could I have missed such salient humor! Whatever. So I responded (for those still reading, here's the joke I promised you!):
What's up with the tesy reaction? I was civil.
Anyways, you and I both know to your readers it's not a joke. In fact, go ahead and create a poll and ask your readers, "True or False, did Al Gore say he invented the internet."
Again, you and I both know that the results would probably be over 75% True, maybe 100% True, who knows. Seriously though, give it a shot, I'd be curious what the results would be.
Now, here's a real JOKE:
Uncle Sam and Osama decided to settle the whole war with a dogfight. They would each have 5 years to breed the best fighting dog and whoever's dog won would dominate the world. Osama found the meanest Doberman females in the world and bred them with the meanest wolves. They selected only the biggest and strongest puppy from each litter. After 5 years, they came up with the biggest, meanest dog ever. When the day came for the big dogfight, Uncle Sam showed up with a strange looking animal. It was a 9-foot long Dachshund. When the cages were opened up, the Dachshund came out of it's cage and slowly waddled over toward Osama's dog. Osama's dog snarled and leaped out of it's cage and charged the American dog--but when it got close to the American dog, the Dachshund opened it's mouth and ate Osama's dog whole. Osama said, "We don't understand how this could have happened, we had our best people working for 5 years with the meanest dogs and the meanest wolves. "Uncle Sam said, "That's nothing, we had our best plastic surgeons working for 5 years to make that alligator look like a weenie dog."
My sense of humor is alive and well, it's yours that apparently needs some work... And please try not to take the Lord's name in vain again, it's just not right.
I figured that he even would think that my joke was funny. I could have found a much more offensive one, but I wanted to stay civil. I never received another response unfortunately, thus the anecdote ends.
But the question still remains, how do we get our humor, our ridicule, to appeal to the masses? Humor is one of the hardest attacks to defend against, but not if it doesn't connect with the masses looking on.