Hitchens' rules of comedy: If it bends it's funny; if it breaks it's not

Tim Cavanaugh | May 19, 2009

Christopher Hitchens reviews the comedienne Wanda Sykes' performance at the White House Correspondents' Dinner. Short description: Sykes died up there like Mary Jo Kophechne, and it's all because she was "vocalizing the talking points of moveon.org and Air America."

Every article has a stated purpose and a true purpose, and Hitch's real aim here is to call Sykes a "Sable Sapphist" (twice), and also to retell some old racist chestnuts under color of a disinterested examination — the comedy equivalent of having your cake and eating it too. (Full disclosure, my real aim is to use the word "comedienne.") I also think there's some connective tissue missing in the claim that the Sable Sapphist wouldn't be caught "lampooning a black equivalent of Limbaugh for an addiction to, say, crack."

But there's an excellent discussion of the whole phenomenon of bootlicking comedy stylings before the National Leader — a spectacle Hitchens, who claims to have endured WHDC jokesters for a truly horrific three decades, knows well:

President Bush used to tell jokes about his weaknesses, the most salient of these being his tragic struggle with grammar, itself quite possibly rooted in dyslexia. Many of President Obama's jokes, his speechwriters should take note, were at the expense of his strengths-"I might lose my cool"-and were thus bordering on the narcissistic. (If I have a fault, and I'm the first to admit it, it's probably this: I am too sweet and too patient and too tolerant of the mistakes of others.)

Any tendency to narcissism doubles the need for a follow-up speaker who can make the president wince, not smirk. This we did not get. And Limbaugh's dependence, like Bush's dyslexia, is actually a disability. Can you easily picture any jokes from the Sable Sapphist that would in any other way breach the protocols of the Americans With Disabilities Act? Any other person of whom she would dare say, "I hope his kidneys fail"? Any other context in which torture would be funny enough for her to yell, "He needs a water-boarding, that's what he needs"? Reality and comedy check here: Would she even say this about Osama Bin Laden?

When comedians flatter the president, they become court jesters, and the country becomes a banana republic.

And yet, and yet, check out the Jesse Venture PWNS Elizabeth Hasselbeck video:

I got an actual laugh out of The Body's last line. For whatever reason, the juxtaposition of waterboarding, Dick Cheney and the Manson murders = Comedy. Go figure.

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|5.19.09 @ 3:18PM|#

I also think there's some connective tissue missing in the claim that the Sable Sapphist wouldn't be caught "lampooning a black equivalent of Limbaugh for an addiction to, say, crack."

Unless she has told jokes about Marion Barry, I would say this is spot on.

the innominate one|5.19.09 @ 3:18PM|#

Why does Hitchens call himself a liberal? Has he confused the term as being synonymous with "pluperfect jackass"?

hmm|5.19.09 @ 3:20PM|#

It's over, don't forget it (it will be forgotten) and move on. Posturing and calling for heads on platters isn't going to do one damn bit of good unless you want all of Congress and the Executive branch prosecuted, which isn't going to happen. Too many people are pumping up their chest and screaming now instead of doing so then (not this case The Body disagreed day one) and the media is just feeding the fire.

Paul|5.19.09 @ 3:20PM|#

Sykes died up there like Mary Jo Kophechne

So, Ted Kennedy was observed running away from the scene?

|5.19.09 @ 3:21PM|#

Comedy that supports the powerful is just not funny in most cases. At some point making fun of Rush Limbaugh or evangelicals or the minority party becomes at best just making fun of the fat kid or at worst government propeganda.

Tim Cavanaugh|5.19.09 @ 3:22PM|#

Unless she has told jokes about Marion Barry, I would say this is spot on.

I don't know whether Sykes herself ever made a Marion Barry joke (but I wouldn't doubt it; she's been doing comedy for a long time), but that's exactly the point. Is there anybody out there who didn't make Marion Barry crack jokes? "Bitch set me up" is right up there with "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" in our catalogue of national catchphrases.

hmm|5.19.09 @ 3:24PM|#

Thanks for pointing out that comedians that had 8 years of material handed to them now have to blow big O for their comedy. There are a few that didn't rely on Bush's daily fuck-ups and oddly enough they aren't blowing the Il Duce as a comedy show. Go figure. Most political comedians are a dismal failure right now because their personal views get in the way and they don't have the white house writing their material. You actually have to think about how you are getting fucked these days. The new guy is a little more crafty than the last guy.

Russ 2000|5.19.09 @ 3:26PM|#

Wanda Sykes problem is that whenever she says something good that gets a laugh, her next two jokes are the exact same joke.

hmm|5.19.09 @ 3:28PM|#

Or that most of her comedy is a fart joke with some sort of situational comedy added. She just isn't funny and either needs new writers or needs to hire some.

|5.19.09 @ 3:32PM|#

Comedy is cuisine... what you like depends on your taste.

the innominate one|5.19.09 @ 3:36PM|#

Admittedly, Wanda Sykes is horribly unfunny. But not because Hitchens says so. She was the least funny person in her scene in Clerks 2.

|5.19.09 @ 3:39PM|#

Sable Sapphist

Sable Sapphist?

Jeeezis, Hitchens- how long did they hold your head underwater?

|5.19.09 @ 3:42PM|#

What is sad is that Obama and especially his white followers are so ripe for satire. My God spend ten minutes readin The Stuff White People Like and the jokes should write themselves.

The smug, white liberal is incapable of laughing at himself. Every other social group has a comdiene who has made a name for themselves making fun of that group. Black people had Richard Prior and later Chris Rock and Dave Chapelle who made entire careers getting laughs at the expense of black culture. White rednecks have the entire blue collar comedy tour that does nothing but make fun of its audience. I could go to a NASCAR race and set up a stage and tell funny redneck jokes and be a hero. If I were black, I could go to any black audience and tell black jokes and people would laugh. But if I went on the Daily Show or Daily Kos and started telling joeks about smug, white liberals, they would call for my head. There is something really creepy about that fact.

the innominate one|5.19.09 @ 3:45PM|#

P Brooks - depending on your point of view, a little too long, or not nearly long enough.

Mike|5.19.09 @ 3:47PM|#

Good article, Hitch, but I do have one disagreement. Drug addition, unlike dyslexia, is a lifestyle choice, not a disability. A stupid choice, yes, but still a choice.

¢|5.19.09 @ 3:48PM|#

Sykes died up there like Mary Jo Kophechne

SURVEY SAYS!

"Filled with Ted Kennedy's semen."

Invisible Finger|5.19.09 @ 3:49PM|#

The smug, white liberal is incapable of laughing at himself.

The smug is always incapable of laughing at himself. Liberal, conservative, libertarian... doesn't make any difference.

You are probably onto something though, Obama was the least smug of the 3 major candidates. Dubya was less smug than Gore or Kerry, Clinton less smug than his opponents. The funny thing is the Democrats managed to find someone more smug than Bush I the first time around.

the innominate one|5.19.09 @ 3:49PM|#

John - let's test your hypothesis. Tell us some jokes about smug, white liberals.

I don't remember what it was now, but you did post something humorous yesterday. Let's hear some more of your wit.

|5.19.09 @ 3:50PM|#

Dave Chapelle who made entire careers getting laughs at the expense of black culture

Though apparently Dave Chappelle's breakdown was because his audience was largely white, and it eventually made him feel like it was more of a minstrel show than anything else. He wanted blacks to laugh at black culture, not just whites.

|5.19.09 @ 3:51PM|#

The smug, white liberal is incapable of laughing at himself.

That's because the smug, white liberal thinks itself to be pure in thought and deed; to mock it would be immoral.

|5.19.09 @ 3:55PM|#

John, SWPL is a comedy site. Yes, its a knowing, hyper self-aware, look-im-great because-I-can-make-fun-of-myself comedy site, but its comedy nonetheless.

Ever read the Onion? read the one about the FBI rescuing kidnapped and starving American Apparel models from a photo shoot? the one about the fire at a Yo La Tengo concert and nothing was left but a twisted pile of black rimmed glasses.

You may not get these jokes but there kinda funny and these people are also Jon Stewart watchers.

"Though apparently Dave Chappelle's breakdown was because his audience was largely white, and it eventually made him feel like it was more of a minstrel show than anything else. He wanted blacks to laugh at black culture, not just whites."

Really? I didn't know that. But throw out Dave Chappelle. Think about Prior. A character like Mudd Bone is certainly at the expense of part of the black community. But plenty of black people laughed at it. Another example is Tyler Perry. Go into any black church on Sunday and you will see where Media comes from.

Go to Williamsburg or Dupont Circle in Washington sometime and you will see the white liberal version of Media. The hip, Obama voting, go the ANSWER march, stuff white people like young liberal. Where is the Tyler Perry to make the media character after those people? There isn't one that I know of. If there was, the last people laughing would be the subjects of the comedy.

|5.19.09 @ 4:00PM|#

Matt,

The Onion is a good counter example. I have no idea who the hell who Yo le Tengo is but I will take your word for it. Of course, the Onion is in print and goes after everyone not just hipster doofuses.

|5.19.09 @ 4:04PM|#

There's no need to make fun of Obama worship, they already do our job for us.

|5.19.09 @ 4:07PM|#

John,

Yeah. Chappelle mentioned this on Oprah. Here's one article about it. Apparently the epiphany came after a white cameraman was laughing too hard at a blackface gag scene.

!</a|5.19.09 @ 4:08PM|#

TC,

Is there anybody out there who didn't make Marion Barry crack jokes?

I didn't.

However, if someone would have gotten on stage and done The Aristocrats joke using the Obama family as the people in the joke? All win there!

|5.19.09 @ 4:09PM|#

"Yeah. Chappelle mentioned this on Oprah. Here's one article about it. Apparently the epiphany came after a white cameraman was laughing too hard at a blackface gag scene."

Good for him. If only now he would turn his comic genius on liberal white people.

!</a|5.19.09 @ 4:10PM|#

Good for him. If only now he would turn his comic genius on liberal white people.

I don't think he will ever go after Obama like Carson went after Carter.

|5.19.09 @ 4:11PM|#

"However, if someone would have gotten on stage and done The Aristocrats joke using the Obama family as the people in the joke? All win there!"

That would be truly subversive. People like Stewart and Maher constantly pat themselves on the back for being cutting edge and subversive. Of course they would never have the balls to do anything really subversive. And they would turn like a pack of wolves on anyone who ever actually did anything as subversive as that.

Mister DNA|5.19.09 @ 4:13PM|#

Before there was Stuff White People Like, there was Black People Love Us!

I'm one of those weirdos who thinks Wanda Sykes is occasionally funny, but her latest gig was a bomb.

hmm|5.19.09 @ 4:14PM|#

Comedy is cuisine... what you like depends on your taste.

I know no one who willing eats shit.

!</a|5.19.09 @ 4:16PM|#

I know no one who willing eats shit.

You are hanging with the wrong BDSM crowd.

Tim Cavanaugh|5.19.09 @ 4:17PM|#

Interesting link, Thacker, but this is one mighty suspicious correction, eh?

[A] few days before he came, a white person had called him a nigger. The incident? On the golf course, the young man tried to discreetly relieve himself near the white man's yard.*

[...]

Correction: April 4, 2006: The article originally and incorrectly stated that the young black man had hit his tee shot into the white man's yard. In fact, he was discreetly relieving himself in a place where the white man could see him. Return to the corrected sentence.

I've got a feeling the story of how this error got made is more interesting than anything in the actual article.

|5.19.09 @ 4:17PM|#

Drug addition, unlike dyslexia, is a lifestyle choice, not a disability.

Another victim of RC'z Law.

Obama was the least smug of the 3 major candidates.

I don't think "least smug" means what you think it means, Invisible.

There isn't one that I know of. If there was, the last people laughing would be the subjects of the comedy.

John,
the Mainstream Media is liberal and smug, ive even heard you say so yourself (har har). When Colbert skewered the Ever Loving Shit out of them at correspondents dinner a few years back, they did not laugh laughs of joy, they laughed laughs of painful recognition. Then they panned his performance in their columns the next day.

hmm|5.19.09 @ 4:18PM|#

My wife yelled at me for asked a crowd of her bunny hugging housewife breeder freind's how many were going to tryout for the lead role in Spike Lee's new sequel to his 1991 hit Jungle Fever, Jungle Fever II: Il Duce.

They called me racist.

|5.19.09 @ 4:19PM|#

"There's no need to make fun of Obama worship, they already do our job for us."

One weekend a month I eat lunch down in the Capital Hill District of Washington. At least around Eastern Market, it is totally white and totally liberal. The Obam paraphanelia for sale ranges from the partioric, Obama in front of the capital, to the creepy, Obama looking suspicously like Jesus, the to bizare, OBama as Superman or Obama on a unicorn. I have often thought of buying one of the unicorn ones and framing it in my office just to see what people would say.

!</a|5.19.09 @ 4:19PM|#

I know no one who willing eats shit.

And you must have only heard sanitized versions of The Aristocrats.

The article originally and incorrectly stated that the young black man had hit his tee shot into the white man's yard. In fact, he was discreetly relieving himself in a place where the white man could see him.

Two thoughts:

(1) If he had been discreetly relieving himself, then the white man wouldn't have been able to see him.

(2) Looks like a straight typo to me - "tee shot" v. "pee shot".

Mister DNA|5.19.09 @ 4:21PM|#

Then they panned his performance in their columns the next day.

And then hired Rich Fucking Little to do the next dinner.

|5.19.09 @ 4:22PM|#

"John,
the Mainstream Media is liberal and smug, ive even heard you say so yourself (har har). When Colbert skewered the Ever Loving Shit out of them at correspondents dinner a few years back, they did not laugh laughs of joy, they laughed laughs of painful recognition. Then they panned his performance in their columns the next day."

I would love to see someone go on the Daily Show and start telling stuff white people like jokes. They would be skinned.

!</a|5.19.09 @ 4:23PM|#

Another victim of RC'z Law.

I don't think so. Drug addition is the crazy way the drug folks do their financial math. Like nickle never means nickle, etc.

Mister DNA|5.19.09 @ 4:24PM|#

Or... you must not know anyone who voted the straight Democrat or Republican ticket.

the innominate one|5.19.09 @ 4:26PM|#

RC - I prefer drug multiplication, myself.

the innominate one|5.19.09 @ 4:27PM|#

John - you've never actually seen a full episode of The Daily Show, have you?

wingnutx|5.19.09 @ 4:33PM|#

Q: How many feminists does it take to screw in a light bulb?

A: That's not funny!

|5.19.09 @ 4:35PM|#

"John - you've never actually seen a full episode of The Daily Show, have you?"

Yes I have. And it is exactly what its critics claim it is.

Jeff P|5.19.09 @ 4:37PM|#

Why isn't "Hasslebeck" is a slang verb yet?

Mister DNA|5.19.09 @ 4:38PM|#

Wingnutx, that reminds me of the Callahan cartoon with the caption: "We don't have a humor section! This is a feminist bookstore!"

|5.19.09 @ 4:39PM|#

Now, I'm only going to get you guys started. Make sure to leave in a place where the next person has somewhere left to go...

Barack Obama walks into the theater manager's office with two Secret Service men. They shut the door behind them and then stand abreast in front of it. The manager throws up his hands in surprise. "President Obama? What are you doing here?" Obama beams a thousand-watt smile at him. "I have an idea for an act," he says. "It will make us both a lot of money." The manager says, "But you are The President of the United States. Why would you want to do a stage act?" Obama leans in and turns on his gravitas. "Michelle and I worked on this act the entire campaign. We wanted something to fall back on if I couldn't win. We put so much work into it, I can't just let it go." The manager looks at the agents by the door. The tall one shrugs. "OK, Mr. President," he says, "tell me about the act."

"Well, it starts off with Michelle on a high wire act. She fakes a fall and I catch her with only the tip of my cock. I balance her as I walk across the stage to where Nancy Pelosi is shitting in a bucket. I sit Michelle feet first in the bucket and then wipe my cock off on Nancy's face. Nancy starts shoving her turds in Michelle's cunt as I piss in her hair. When I finish, I punch Nancy in the back of the head and I anal-wheelbarrow her across the stage to Rahm. He begins to

Franklin Harris|5.19.09 @ 4:40PM|#

Given that this is Hitchens we're talking about, I'm surprised he didn't say, "Sykes bombed like an Islamist."

|5.19.09 @ 4:42PM|#

Jeff P,

Hasselbecking: The act of getting uglier the more one speaks.

the innominate one|5.19.09 @ 4:44PM|#

...jerk off into Michelle's mouth, while Hillary pounds his ass with a strap-on...

the innominate one|5.19.09 @ 4:45PM|#

Franklin - that is funny

The View is like a stupidity and ignorance contest that Elizabeth Hasselbach always wins.

John - exactly one episode during the Bush administration, I'm guessing.

|5.19.09 @ 4:46PM|#

then my two girls come in wearing leotards.

|5.19.09 @ 4:48PM|#

"John - exactly one episode during the Bush administration, I'm guessing."

He makes about one joke a week at a really easy Democratic target. So he can use it as a fig leaf. Stewart is just a less honest Rush Limbaugh without the drug problem. In fact, he might be funnier if he had a drug problem.

Deshawn|5.19.09 @ 4:56PM|#

the innominate one|5.19.09 @ 4:57PM|#

Deshawn|5.19.09 @ 5:02PM|#

"I know no one who willing eats shit."

www.free2g1c.com/

|5.19.09 @ 5:03PM|#

"Isn't the problem really that you don't like or can't conceive that some people, like Greenwald and perhaps Stewart (who admits to being liberal) actually have objective principles instead of just "I want my party to win" principles?"

No. To the extent that they have principles I find their principles appalling. Further, at least in the case of Stewart, the day he pries Obama's cock out of his mouth and goes after Obama the same way he did Bush, is the day I will have any respect for him. As it is, he is just a government propegandist. Just because he uses humor, doesn't mean he is not a shill for the government.

Mad Max|5.19.09 @ 5:07PM|#

. . . and they say, "Dad, please stop, you're embarrassing us." So I quit and go home.

|5.19.09 @ 5:16PM|#

Of course, it's not the only source for the basic Chappelle story, and the article itself is not necessarily the best retelling of it, just one that I could find quickly.

That is quite an interesting correction, I agree.

guy in the back row|5.19.09 @ 5:34PM|#

She does comedy? I thought she was a voiceover artist.

Paul|5.19.09 @ 6:04PM|#

Isn't the problem really that you don't like or can't conceive that some people, like Greenwald and perhaps Stewart (who admits to being liberal) actually have objective principles instead of just "I want my party to win" principles?

The only way to tell the difference between the two is to watch how those people react when circumstances bring them to a crossroad. So, when Obama is "Being presidential, and governing" is he just bringing it on in for the big win?

|5.19.09 @ 6:09PM|#

That picture reminds me of a joke I heard once: Man goes to doctor. Says he's depressed. Says life is harsh and cruel. Says he feels all alone in a threatening world. Doctor says, "Treatment is simple. The great clown Pagliacci is in town tonight. Go see him. That should pick you up." Man bursts into tears. Says, "But doctor… I am Pagliacci." Good joke. Everybody laugh. Roll on snare drum. Curtains.

Vanessa|5.19.09 @ 6:11PM|#

John:

>There is something really creepy about that fact.

II would not go so far as to call it a fact. It is actually a prediction.

|5.19.09 @ 6:46PM|#

He makes about one joke a week at a really easy Democratic target. So he can use it as a fig leaf.

Last Thur., his whole opening monologue was poking fun at Obama and (especially) Pelosi.

...goes after Obama the same way he did Bush,...
Because they have both caused exactly as much damage to our country, I presume?

Stewart's clearly got a slant to his viewpoint, but the same can be said of us all. Yours, John, is especially obvious.

the innominate one|5.19.09 @ 6:46PM|#

Salvadore Dali: "I am not coprophagic, but I am coprophilic."

Vanessa - nice bit of semantics, there. are you free later for dinner?

the innominate one|5.19.09 @ 6:49PM|#

jasa - like pretty much all the conservatives criticizing the MSM for being too liberal, John's real, subconscious criticism is "they didn't criticize [Democrat] hard enough or for the same reason I think he should be criticized, therefore they have a liberal bias".

The real problem is the MSM and Fox all have a pro-government bias.

JB|5.19.09 @ 7:00PM|#

Anyone who doesn't think the MSM have a liberal bias is blind and deaf.

Art-P.O.G.|5.19.09 @ 7:16PM|#

:::sighs at JB @7:00

Alberta Libertarian|5.19.09 @ 7:26PM|#

You know who has a liberal bias, liberals...

the innominate one|5.19.09 @ 7:49PM|#

Admittedly, most journalists are liberals. However, major media outlets are owned by big corporations, the owners of which are less likely to be liberals. Publishers in general are, IIRC.

The non-Fox MSM (since it's ridiculous to think that Fox isn't part of the MSM) are supposed to be objective in their reporting as a goal. Their biases (as is true for most humans, if not all) prevent perfect objectivity, but they usually seem to try.

Fox, OTOH, claims to be "fair and balanced", but decidedly is not.

All are pro-government.

Props to Fox for giving Napolitano his own show, though.

Anti-props to Fox for being dicks to Ron Paul.

Lefiti|5.19.09 @ 8:56PM|#

Here's Hitchens at his best:

Not Even a Hedgehog
The stupidity of Ronald Reagan.
By Christopher Hitchens

Not long ago, I was invited to be the specter at the feast during "Ronald Reagan Appreciation Week" at Wabash College in Indiana. One of my opponents was Dinesh D'Souza: He wasn't the only one who maintained that Reagan had been historically vindicated by the wreckage of the Soviet Union. Some of us on the left had also been very glad indeed to see the end of the Russian empire and the Cold War. But nothing could make me forget what the Reagan years had actually been like.
Ronald Reagan claimed that the Russian language had no word for "freedom." (The word is "svoboda"; it's quite well attested in Russian literature.) Ronald Reagan said that intercontinental ballistic missiles (not that there are any non-ballistic missiles-a corruption of language that isn't his fault) could be recalled once launched. Ronald Reagan said that he sought a "Star Wars" defense only in order to share the technology with the tyrants of the U.S.S.R. Ronald Reagan professed to be annoyed when people called it "Star Wars," even though he had ended his speech on the subject with the lame quip, "May the force be with you." Ronald Reagan used to alarm his Soviet counterparts by saying that surely they'd both unite against an invasion from Mars. Ronald Reagan used to alarm other constituencies by speaking freely about the "End Times" foreshadowed in the Bible. In the Oval Office, Ronald Reagan told Yitzhak Shamir and Simon Wiesenthal, on two separate occasions, that he himself had assisted personally at the liberation of the Nazi death camps.
More at http://www.slate.com/id/2101842/

John Tagliaferro|5.19.09 @ 10:53PM|#

Aristrocrators, the joke to this point is captured at the Suki blog.

Those of you quoted there get a free PDF download of Suki I. Just email me, the address is easy enough to find at the site.

Sandy|5.19.09 @ 11:06PM|#

not that there are any non-ballistic missiles

Eh, what? Did he miss the whole cruise missile debate of the 70s? Not watch any of the footage of the Tomahawks coming down a street and making a turn to go blow sumpthin' up reel good during the Gulf War?

Angus Johnston|5.19.09 @ 11:10PM|#

Jon Stewart's monologues and interviews rarely offer extended riffs on white liberalism, but his correspondent segments often do.

Curb Your Enthusiasm and 30 Rock also regularly poke at white liberalism from the inside. And as for mocking Williamsburg hipsters, what about Flight of the Conchords?

MJ|5.19.09 @ 11:18PM|#

"Sable Sapphist?

Jeeezis, Hitchens- how long did they hold your head underwater?"

You must understand...

... he's British for godsakes

Mike|5.20.09 @ 1:21AM|#

"Ronald Reagan said that intercontinental ballistic missiles (not that there are any non-ballistic missiles-a corruption of language that isn't his fault) could be recalled once launched."

Damn, Hitch, I didn't know you could say something that dumb. What Reagan really said was that we could send nuclear submarines, which CAN be recalled, that launch ICBMs. His opponents lied (there is no other work for it), and said that Reagan thought that ICBMs could be recalled, so they could make him look bad. Sort of like the "Bush is going to reinstitute the draft!" lie.

Mike|5.20.09 @ 1:23AM|#

oops, "there is no other WORD for it".

John Tagliaferro|5.20.09 @ 5:42AM|#

Angus Johnston,

Murphy Brown used to do a lot of that too.

|5.20.09 @ 10:42AM|#

The smug, white liberal is incapable of laughing at himself.

I dunno. Christian Lander, the creator of Stuff White People Like, is himself a smug, white liberal.

(Of course, if you reply that Lander's creation of SWPL shows that he isn't "smug," then you've effectively defined "smug, white liberal" as "liberal who is incapable of laughing at himself," which makes the original statement a tautology.)

|5.20.09 @ 10:43AM|#

not that there are any non-ballistic missiles-a corruption of language that isn't his fault

Yes, there are. Non-ballistic missiles are called guided missiles.

|5.20.09 @ 1:43PM|#

Ronald Reagan said that intercontinental ballistic missiles (not that there are any non-ballistic missiles-a corruption of language that isn't his fault)

Hitchens, you moron. A cruise missile is not ballistic.

|5.20.09 @ 1:46PM|#

From: http://www.slate.com/id/2139034/

This was, apparently, the galvanizing moment that caused Chappelle to reassess the intent of his comedy, and the kind of laughs he was giving his audience. As he told Time, "I want to make sure I'm dancing and not shuffling."

Pay me $50 million and I'll shuffle for anyone

JB|5.20.09 @ 2:00PM|#

You know who has a liberal bias, liberals...

You know that numerous studies show that the members of the MSM (from journaleasts to editors) are overwhelmingly liberal, right?

It's rare when I read a story or see one one TV that isn't obviously biased. A prime case in point was the stem cell issue. Nearly every time it was described as a ban on stem cell research. They were so biased they couldn't even get a basic fact right: it was a ban on FEDERALLY-FUNDED stem cell research.

Lefiti|5.20.09 @ 2:03PM|#

Hitchens' description of Reagan toward the end of the piece is a hoot:

One could go on. I only saw him [Reagan] once up close, which happened to be when he got a question he didn't like. Was it true that his staff in the 1980 debates had stolen President Carter's briefing book? (They had.) The famously genial grin turned into a rictus of senile fury: I was looking at a cruel and stupid lizard. His reply was that maybe his staff had, and maybe they hadn't, but what about the leak of the Pentagon Papers? Thus, a secret theft of presidential documents was equated with the public disclosure of needful information. This was a man never short of a cheap jibe or the sort of falsehood that would, however laughable, buy him some time.

http://www.slate.com/id/2101842/

|5.20.09 @ 5:43PM|#

Lefiti

Are you under the impression that this blog is populated by devoted Reaganites?

|5.20.09 @ 5:44PM|#

You know that numerous studies show that the members of the MSM (from journaleasts to editors) are overwhelmingly liberal, right?

What do you expect them to be? Look at who describes themselves as conservative/Republican these days. That's right, mouth-breathing morons from bumfuck nowhere who don't know anything. Journalists, academics, and all the other members of the evil worldwide conspiracy to oppress you are liberals because they are smart people.

Lefiti|5.20.09 @ 6:31PM|#

"Are you under the impression that this blog is populated by devoted Reaganites?"

Of course not. I assume that the intelligent folks who post here have as much contempt for Reagan as I do.

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