UPDATE: I see that Geekesque has already diaried on this, so I'm changing the topic of this diary to a simple question on the subject: Where, exactly, is the "joke" part?
So lessee...John McCain:
...has repeatedly voting against women having control over their own bodies;
...has voted against insurance companies covering birth control but for Viagra;
..has held a fundraiser at the home of Clayton "If rape is inevitable, women should just lie back and enjoy it" Williams (h/t to AggieDemocrat in the comments);
..made a tasteless joke about Chelsea Clinton being ugly (while she was a teenage girl) and Jane Reno being a guy, in public;
...has also, according to various sources...
...called his wife a c*nt, to her face, in front of reporters.
...and, it now appears, in 1986, during his first run for United States Senate, made a joke about a woman being violently raped by a gorilla.
Anyone else noticing a pattern here?
The story...goes like this: In an appearance before the National League of Cities and Towns in Washington D.C., McCain supposedly asked the crowd if they had heard "the one about the woman who is attacked on the street by a gorilla, beaten senseless, raped repeatedly and left to die?"
The punch line: "When she finally regains consciousness and tries to speak, her doctor leans over to hear her sigh contently and to feebly ask, "Where is that marvelous ape?"
OK. Aside from being sickening, repulsive and altogether horrible...where exactly is the joke, even on the most visceral, misogynistic level?
A woman gets beaten and raped, and likes it. That's the entire "joke", period.
After George Carlin died, there was an anti-Carlin diary blasting him for having a whole skit about rape, which led to a lengthy discussion of whether any subject is/should be truly taboo, what lines should or shouldn't be crossed, the nature of comedy, the underlying point of Carlins' approach, and so on.
Regardless of your opinion of Carlin, his skit, or the very topic of joking about rape, I think we can all agree that McCain's "joke" wasn't even remotely funny even taking the "ickiness/taboo" factor out of it.
I mean, think about it--let's suppose that you substituted a man for the gorilla. Then the joke becomes "a women is beaten and raped, and likes it." That's obviously not funny on any level, so the only "funny" part is supposed to be that it's a gorilla instead of a man.
Hilarious. Or rather, um, no.