Are conservatives even capable of being funny?

[Mortos]

I just reviewed Fox New's terrible new "comedy" show, The Half Hour News Hour and I found it to be mean spirited, racist, sexist and painfully unfunny.

Read review and see clips here: www.conservativfighter.wordpress.com

My question is, are there any funny conservatives (not the unintentionally we laugh at their stupidity and hypocrisy funny but the make you laugh at their jokes funny) in the comedy world.

Everyone says Dennis Miller but I never thought he was funny even when he was still sniffing coke and banging groupies. Larry Miller was kind of funny and is apparently now a conservative but his humor, as I remember it, wasn't partisan and he was mildly popular over 20 years ago (hardly a household comedy name). Larry the Cable guy is sometimes funny in an ignorant redneck laugh at my inbred retard accent and proud ignorance way but not when he is being openly homophobic.

Is there anyone else remotely funny who is also openly conservative?

I pose a few reasons why conservatives aren't funny in my review. Check it out.

[lisa58]

1. They think that is funny...

...sad, but true.

[gravity]

2. I think Fox News is funny

but for all the wrong reasons.

[madame defarge]

3. P. J. O'Rourke thinks he's funny...

Just heard him as a guest on "Wait, wait, don't tell me" show on NPR. He was only mildly amusing, IMHO.

[Mortos]

11. Isn't he more of a libertarian than a conservative?

[madame defarge]

14. A conservative libertarian...

Actually, today he said he was a "right wing conservative" or something to that effect.

[mitchum]

18. That is a perfect review of O'Rourke

just because he once breathed the same air as the great Michael O'Donoghue, Tony Hendra, Chris Miller, and others he must feel that he benefited from some type of humor osmosis or something.
Sorry,it doesn't work like that.

[madame defarge]

19. Here's a bit that's very telling of O'Rourke's interest

On "Wait, wait, don't tell me", they have lightening round of the "fill in the blank" for the latest news. O'Rourke was asked about the sad, sorry state of the condition of "which institution" that served our veterans. He could not remember the name of "Walter Reed Hospital!" Yet, he correctly answered the next question about which celebrity had her head shaved.

That speaks volumes to me about what an idiot he is. If you claim to be a political analyst/satirist, how can you have gone through the week without knowing the name of Walter Reed Hospital.

[Richardo]

4. Yes. Christopher Buckley is hilarious.

He's a writer, not a performer, though.

[AlCzervik]

7. agreed, i read "Thank you for smoking" and laughed out loud, that book is

hilarious.

[Richardo]

10. He has a collection of stories and essays called 'Wry Martinis'

I recommend it - there's a great three or four articles where he and Tom Clancy get into a feud over one of Buckley's BAD reviews of a Clancy book :rofl:

[AlCzervik]

12. thank you, i will be looking for that.

:toast:

[Ian David]

5. Conservatives are funny when you push them down the stairs. n/t

[Warpy]

6. Cruelty is hilarious to right wingers

Otherwise, any hilarity they produce is unintentional.

[Ian David]

8. Liberal Humor speaks Truth to Power. Conservative "Humor" ridicules the Powerless. n/t

[jayschool]

9. Political humor

Political humor -- specifically its ability to be relevant and funny -- relies on two components:
1) Making fun of those in power
2) Having believable premises

First, when a "satirical" show leans only on bashing the party that hasn't been in power for at least the last six years, it misses a gold mine of potential yuks. "Saturday Night Live" was funny in the 1990s mostly because of Darrell Hammond's spot-on impersonation of President Clinton. That didn't mean SNL was inherently conservative, it simply meant it was a nominal Democrat's time in the line of fire. "The Daily Show" was an equal-opportunity offender until the absolute looniness and power-mongering by the Bush Administration made Republicans as easy target.

Picking one's perspective first, then trying to build jokes around that, is a sure way to fail.

Second, you can't build a joke on a premise that isn't true. One of their favorite memes over the past 15 years has been the alleged whacked-out liberalness of the Clintons, who are, by almost all political measures, moderates. Yet they continue to construct "humor" based on some alleged far-out behavior that was never true: neither Bill nor Hillary qualified as counter-culture figures in the 1960s; in fact, both were pretty straight-laced, albeit super idealistic political geeks in their college days. Hell, Bill didn't even inhale.

[freeplessinseattle]

13. only unintentionally n/t

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

15. I laughed my ass off when Nixon resigned.

[ThoughtCriminal]

16. Humor, like journalism...

should "comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable". This is why most right-wing humor fails - it almost always ridicules the victims. Conservatives don't get this because no matter how much power and money they have, they still see themselves as victims.

[Swamp Rat]

17. Yes, I laugh at them all the time.

[Bronyraurus]

20. Off the top of my head...

P.J. O'Rourke
Dennis Miller used to be funny
Christopher Buckley
Mark Steyn- my conservative Dad reads him all the time and he's pretty witty
Tom Wolfe
Christopher Hitchens (does he count as a conservative?)

[Mortos]

22. I have seen Hitchens on a few shows, namely Politically Incorrect

he didn't strike me as funny he struck me as a pompous drunk. I have read a few pieces by him but they were more editorial than comic. I got a P.J. O'Rourke book today at our "Friends of the Library sale for .50 cents. I will let you know. I never thought Dennis Miller was funny, even on Saturday Night Live. I don't know the other two.

[Bronyraurus]

26. Hitchens' writing can be very funny

In some book he wrote that I read a long time ago, he addresses an argument made by somebody that struck him as fatuous. His line:

"What wheezing mule did this guy ride in on?" or something like that.

O'Rourke is very funny, especially Parliament of Whores, which takes aim at both parties, and Give War a Chance, a travelogue of war-torn locales in the late 80s.

I've thought Dennis Miller was funny ever since he warned about Newt Gingrich "fixing the rat cage over the face of America" in 1994.

Christopher Buckley wrote Thank You for Smoking and numerous essays (and is William F. Buckley's son!). He actually wrote a blind wine-tasting article in Forbes FYI with P.J. O'Rourke, in which he described a particular wine as having "thick, almost Bulgarian legs."

Mark Steyn writes obituaries for the Atlantic and writes neocon-oriented rants elsewhere, but knows how to turn a clever phrase.

[mitchum]

21. Florence King, William F Buckley and Winston Churchill are the only 3...

I find funny.

[PuraVidaDreamin]

23. Don't forget 'Comedian Rush Limbaugh'

Doing the MJFox Jiggle

[uppityperson]

24. Conservatives, yes. Fundamentalists, no.

[City Lights]

25. Yes, but only when they are being series!!!!!

They're never funny when they're attempting comedy.

[UTUSN]

27. Their humor is of the juvenile, ridiculing, mocking, hurtful variety n/t

[WilliamPitt]

28. Yup

After Ted Kennedy's '88 convention speech, the one with the "Where was George?" theme, the Bush campaign replied to the question with a single-sentence press release. It read, "At home, in bed with his wife, sober."

Funny.