Joke: "How many feminists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?" Feminist punchline answer: "That's not funny." In a few words, this joke says volumes about the handicaps liberals have in winning others over to their side. They are largely humorless.

Liberals lost a lot of people when they lost their sense of humor. When you can't laugh at people, people will laugh at you. People laugh at liberals, not with them.

Watch Bill Maher's program on HBO, for instance, and you'll see an audience laughing out of ideological solidarity, not because anything funny was said. Stephen Colbert makes people laugh, but he's the exception and not the rule. Keith Olbermann tries to make people laugh, but he mistakes sarcasm for humor. Janeane Garofalo, Michael Moore, and Dick Gregory dabble in comedy, but do so with scowls rather than smiles. I don't know the last time Dick Gregory made anyone laugh when he intended to do so.

Good comedy knows no ideological limitations. It doesn't throw away a funny joke because it offends the wrong people. It doesn't tell an unfunny joke because it offends the right people.

It's not that anyone would find a conservative comedian any more endearing than, say, liberal comic Margaret Cho--whose act probably gets replayed in hell. But there are comedians--Nick DiPaolo, Sarah Silverman, Jim Norton--whose refusal to steer clear of society's taboos sets them apart from other comedians. It's not that Norton and company are closet conservatives. (Most of their acts would offend most conservatives.) It's just that they mock liberals too, and offend the cultural guardians--who, if you haven't noticed, are no longer clergymen, Rotarians, and PTA moms. Perhaps this rebellion against the gatekeepers was the reason that the gatekeepers at Comedy Central cancelled Tough Crowd, a two-years-dead show that often featured Norton, Silverman, and DiPaolo. As one liberal blogger complained, Tough Crowd was "too tolerant of errant racist minds. To watch the show became an exercise in watching hate. I can't do that, and have no respect for it (sorry, am still a Democrat)." Why let politics get in the way of a laugh?

There is no liberal South Park. This is partly because modern liberalism has made too many targets, and too many topics, off limits to ridicule and jokes. One person still open to ridicule is the president of the United States, particularly when a Republican. This masterfully spliced video, the Evil State of the Union, shows that at least a few liberals remain who have retained a healthy sense of humor.

I watched the first few episodes of the Colbert Report. They were terrible. But I gave it another chance a few months ago, and all of the sudden, Colbert is brilliant. His show is now better than the Daily Show.

Just on example among many: I about fell out of my chair laughing when he interviewed Eleanor Holmes Norton (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHsOrFwIZ8Y). She attempts to match wits with him and he simply humiliates her, e.g., by arguing that D.C. isn't in the U.S. and mocking her for not being able to vote.

Four. One to get a guy to do it, one to hold the ladder for him and two to berate him and call him a sexist pig. ;-)

I think Colbert is wickedly funny, but I wouldn't call him brilliant. He merely channels Sean Hannity with a dash of Bill O'Reilly. His show highlights the rhetorical poverty of the Hannitized conservative movement. It's sad that I find it so funny.

I don't know if it is just a phenomenon on the left side of politics but I have seen what you speak of many a time, specifically, political opinion treated as if it is somehow funny. The comedian David Cross is a good example, his stand-up is largely atrocious. I have been subjected to it a couple times and he basically will say something like "Bush is the worst (expletive) president ever!" and the ausience immediately erupts in laughter and whooping applause. I don't like Bush but hearing that someone on the stage agrees w/ me doesn't constitute a joke let alone humor. Too much of liberal humor takes the form of expressing their views forcefully or crudely and if someone agrees they laugh in a "oh that is so true" sort of way. That is tiresome.

I do think though that liberals have a South Park, it is The Simpsons. The reason you might not recognize its fundamental liberalism is that it is partly derived from the midwestern homespun American liberalism of a Garrison Keillor (as opposed to the Hollywood variety) and secondly that it is a highly managed production which has always cared more about selling products then ideological purity. Therefore, they go w/ the lower common denominator slapstick and the politically incorrect themes as well. But Lisa Simpson has always been the true voice of that shows message, and that is an unfailingly liberal voice.

Did you intentionally leave off Al Franken and Jon Stewart? Both are very funny and very left. Janeane Garofalo is another comic that hosts a show on Air America. I would say that the exact opposite is true there are a number of comedians who have become left political commentators, what commedian has become a conservative political commentator.

Batman: I had never thought of it that way as I love the Simpsons (much to my humorless wife's amazement). The writing and the comedy is top notch and I find the plots and slapstick outweigh any political posturing. But, now that you mention it, it does have a liberal slant. Using Homer as the conservative fall guy/dunce seems to be the rule. Unlike liberals though, people who are somewhat on the other side of the spectrum find it less painful to laugh at themselves.

I'm not Batman, I am just a reclusive tycoon.

Actually, I think that the appeal of Homer is similar to the appeal of Archie Bunker. You are right that Homer has a basic tendency to hold identifiably conservative opinions. His stupidity, vices, and seeming complete lack of awareness really water down his opinions though so he is much less clearly a conservative character than Bunker. But the Simpsons creators run into the same problem that the creators of Archie Bunker ran into, namely, that the real conservative guy is the one who audiences find most appealing, interesting, and funny. Meathead and Gloria were that shows Lisa Simpson, they were intended to be the youthful, liberal corrective to the prejudices of the old man. But they were characters that the audience loves to see Bunker undermine, and they just weren't funny.

The fact that the Simpsons producers make the same sort of compromises as the liberal creators of All In The Family made in order to ensure the shows popularity says more about their business sense then about their politics.

Al Franken is very left, but he is not very funny.
Sarah Silverman is very funny.

Bruce, can't disagree with that. Right on observations.

Tough Crowd was a decent show, but at the end of the day comedy Central realized that Colbert would make them more money.

It wasn't a "liberal blogger" *gasp* that made Comedy Central pull the plug, it was a cold hard cash calculation.

If anything you "free market" conservatices should understand that.

BTW I personally think that women belong in the kitchen.

It's what god intended.

Jeremayakovka,
oh my god, I just want to apologize to you for my even implying that Al Franken was funnier than Sarah Silverman. I was wrong. I just saw this hilarious clip on youtube -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUYubjIqei8 --
she's getting rid of her dog because he's not as capable as her phone, and if that isn't hilarious enough, her phone tells her that she "eats farts," come on, what liberal jokester can come up with a gag like that. Stuart Smalley is rolling in his grave, RIP :)

Out of curiosity, I watched that clip you referred to R.C.. All I can say is, that if that's what constitutes humor today, the bar has definately been lowered. Not at all funny and what foolish crap.