A Swing And A Miss

Contrary to some popular media conceptions, conservatives can be quite funny. Every issue of National Review includes a collection of assorted one-liners, quips, and anectodes, some of which are laugh-out-loud funny and most of the rest least invoke chuckles that fall somewhere in between "wry" and "witty."

Faux News' parody of the Daily Show, however, is not funny. Here's an example:



Deconstructing humor is also not funny, but useful to understand why something can miss so badly. A friend, who is both conservative and quite funny (he's done standup, with some success) had this to say in response to the clip: "This falls into my 'Funny [Fill In The Blank]' theory - that you aren't funny if the emphasis is on the noun rather than the adjective."

And lest you all think I would leave you without an example to prove my proposition that conservatives can indeed be funny, here's Senator John McCain, who is certainly a lot more right-wing than, say, Dennis Kucinich:



See, now that's funny. Funnier than contemplating the truth in Grover Norquist's condemnation of what's happened to the conservative movement.