Moralia

An easily offended reader comments on my post linking to a video parody of the Obama campaign imploding over the Palin surge:

That you think comparing Obama to Hitler is funny, even in a bad joke, says all that needs to be said about modern conservatism.

Another reader, a blogger who doesn’t want me to quote her blog (the nasty bit she wrote on it about McCain and Palin was so tempting, yet trying to be nice I forebore) wrote me in private e-mail to tell me (a) how mean I was, (b) don’t reply to her, and (c) she won’t be reading my blog anymore. I suppose I’ll get over the trauma someday.

I actually thought about deleting the offending post, figuring that if it upset a few people this much, it probably upset a lot more people who didn’t comment, since the number of comments I receive is a tiny fraction of the number of hits the blog gets. I thought, I’m a decent person, and consider Hitler and the Nazis as vile and despicable as every other decent person does, and I don’t want anyone thinking otherwise.

Then I thought, if I delete that post, pretty soon another one will offend people, and I’ll delete that one too, and the next thing you know I’ll have lost my nerve — and integrity — entirely. So instead of taking the coward’s way out, I’ll respect the integrity of my blog, and try to explain to the satirically challenged just what, precisely, satire is.

Satire takes risks. It walks the fine line between funny and offensive, frequently toppling over from the former into the latter. When it goes too far, it makes one cringe, but when it hits just the right balance, it is wickedly funny. Of course, the right balance is different for everyone, and one man’s satire is another man’s obscenity.

Take South Park. I dislike bathroom humor. I dislike it in South Park, and I dislike it in Aristophanes. And yet I enjoy both Aristophanes and South Park. Why? Because when you get beyond the sex and flatulence, both the Athenian poet and the duo from Comedy Central have the dark, deadly art of satire down pat. I freely admit, there are times I watch South Park, cringe at the nastiness, and change the channel. But there are other times I laugh so hard I’m almost gasping for breath. That’s because true comedic genius doesn’t play it safe. It takes risks, and often it offends.

The “DNC War Room” video offended some of my readers. Fair enough. I can see why, if they truly believed that the intent of the video was to equate Obama with Hitler. But it wasn’t. The point wasn’t that Obama is a genocidal fascist (which wouldn’t be funny, since he isn’t, and would be even less funny if he were) but that the Democrats are running scared now that the old guy they dismissed as Bob Dole Part II threw them the ultimate curve and picked a young, charismatic female running mate who has Ronald Reagan’s rhetorical gifts. If they weren’t seriously rattled, would they have been so careless as to air an ad making fun of McCain for not using e-mail, and then have to yank the ad immediately when they found out that McCain can’t use a computer keyboard thanks to the brutal beatings he received as a POW in Vietnam? It’s the panic and confusion the Democrats must be experiencing that the video was lampooning, not any similarity (because there isn’t any) between Obama and Hitler.

For those who haven’t seen Downfall, the Oscar-nominated German film chronicled the final days of Hitler and his inner circle in the Bavarian bunker awaiting the final collapse of the Third Reich. The video parody takes the scene in which the generals report that the Allies are closing in, and Hitler completely loses it, raving and ranting like the madman he was. The parody video leaves the German soundtrack intact, but replaces the English subtitles from the film with ones about the Palin (rather than the Allied) threat to the Obama campaign (rather than the German Reich). If you think that conservatives really think Obama is like a genocidal maniac responsible for the deaths of millions, then yes, the video is offensive in the extreme. If, on the other hand, you can separate reality from fantasy, well, then you might just think it’s rather clever. After all, likening one’s opponents to Hitler is the left’s game, not the right’s. Google Bush+Hitler and see what comes up. Why, just this morning my local paper contained a letter to the editor from Sabine Lucas stating

As a person born and raised in Nazi Germany, watching the Republican National Convention last week made me almost sick to my stomach. Were the Germans to display this kind of unabashed nationalism, the whole world would be pointing fingers saying, “See, the old Nazis are back!”

Republicans are Nazis. Bush is Hitler. They say it seriously. And when someone on the other side engages in satire, they wring their hands and call names.