Paul “The End Is Near” Krugman thinks conservatives are seeing witches but it’s really the Nobel Laureate who’s fighting his own liberal demons. In his August 29 New York Times op-ed, “It’s Witch-Hunt Season Again,” Krugman showcases both his traditional humorlessness and his peerless paranoia about what the inevitable Republican rout in the November mid-terms “will do to America.”
The last time a Democrat sat in the White House, he faced a nonstop witch-hunt by his political opponents… Now it’s happening again — except that this time it’s even worse. Let’s turn the floor over to Rush Limbaugh: “Imam Hussein Obama,” he recently declared, is “probably the best anti-American president we’ve ever had.”… When people like Mr. Limbaugh talk like this, bear in mind that he’s an utterly mainstream figure within the Republican Party; bear in mind, too, that unless something changes the political dynamics, Republicans will soon control at least one house of Congress. This is going to be very, very ugly. So where is this rage coming from? Why is it flourishing? What will it do to America?
Before proceeding, let us not fail to note that Krugman’s conceding at minimum a Republican take-over of the House implies an accompanying fear of loss of the Senate as well. No wonder poor Paul’s a pallid pundit these days.
Now let’s examine Krugman’s inability to understand satire. This is a common liberal malady brought about by years of wearing one’s bleeding heart all over one’s sleeve. While Krugman’s humorlessness is no doubt incurable at this point, there may be other liberals whose capacity for laughter can still be salvaged by examining the Krugman case. At least it’s worth a try.
In attacking radio titan Limbaugh for referring to Obama as “Imam Hussein Obama,” Krugman exhibits the classic liberal myopia of mistaking Limbaugh for a political leader, a representative of the Republican Party.
Rush Limbaugh is first and last a satirist, a political one to be sure, but he is a humorist–and a virtuosic one at that. What Krugman and others on the left consistently fail to realize–and what Limbaugh (channeling Swift and Pope) senses instinctively the way Drew Brees does open receivers–is that to be effective, satire must have teeth. Limbaugh has long known that the sword of Ridicule is far sharper than the blunt blade of Cliché. There’s a reason Limbaugh’s radio show is carried on more than 600 stations around the country and boasts a listenership of between 15 and 25 million, depending who’s counting.
Sarah Palin, Mitt Romney, Mitch Daniels, Mike Huckabee–pick your potential 2012 Republican presidential candidate–could never refer to Obama as an imam. They are compelled to measure their words, even when outright condemning the president’s policies. Limbaugh on the other hand enjoys the wide-ranging freedom of any satirist–from Howard Stern to Dennis Miller to George Carlin–and he recognizes and wields with glee the power of the ridiculous epithet (“Dingy Harry,” “MS-LSD,” “Robert Sheets Byrd,” “the Regime” etc.) which he sprinkles throughout his daily broadcasts like verbal jimmies atop his rhetorical custards.
Krugman’s attacking Limbaugh as a legitimate political opponent is the equivalent of a sports writer kicking Wally the Green Monster when the Red Sox don’t make the playoffs. It’s a sign of Krugman’s–and his liberal kinfolk’s–deepening frustration that he chooses to vent his anger on someone who’s not even on the roster.
Equally pathological is Krugman’s interpretation of Limbaugh’s imam remark as “rage.” A petulant Paul ponders:
So where is this rage coming from? Why is it flourishing? What will it do to America?
Ah, the vaunted rage card–one of the newer tropes favored by the left — which used to make its own “Days of Rage” a point of pride. Paint all objection to Obama’s run-amok uber-governance as “rage”–extremist, over-reactive, immoderate. Behavior which can then be readily dismissed by the rational, restrained, discerning left.
Remember how the August 2009 Town Hall attendees were portrayed? They weren’t just angry. They were enraged! Limbaugh is not displaying “anti-Islam hysteria” but merely–through time-honored satirical exaggeration–pointing out Obama’s clear sympathy with the would-be builders of the Ground Zero mosque. It’s Krugman himself who’s hysterical, displaying his own anti-anti-Islamophobia.
A satirist is by nature “angry”– it’s part of the pose. What humor-challenged Krugman doesn’t understand is that most comedy–but especially satire–is complaint. Satire is when you make people laugh; rage is when you organize a street riot and smash windows in shops and cars — just as the Weathermen did in Chicago in 1969. You’d think a “Nobel Laureate” would be smart enough to know the difference.
And if he’s not, he can always ask Obama’s pal, Bernadine Dohrn. After all, she was there.