If you see something funny, ironic, hypocritical, or just weird, please send it to iron@politicalirony.com and I’ll try to post it here.
Also, I’m also looking for other people to become submitters to this blog. If you would like to be considered, please let me know. And send me some posts — as usual I’ll post them if I like them.
Please don’t be offended if I don’t post something you send to me. There are lots of things that I like that I don’t post here. Sometimes I send them to people I know who run blogs where those items fit in better.
Post Guidelines
Posts should not be blatantly partisan. For example, if you would be reluctant to post something that Obama does that is hypocritical or ironic, then you shouldn’t be posting here. Also, try not to take things out of context or twist their meaning in order to make them hypocritical (unless the change of context is for comic effect). The world of politics is bizarre enough without the media (or this site) making it worse.
This is a humor site. News that makes someone look stupid isn’t necessarily ironic. Don’t attack someone just for the sake of attack, or just to advance your own agenda. Posts should be funny, satirical, ironic, or expose blatant hypocrisy. My goal is that someone who might not agree with your position still can find the post humorous or interesting. Don’t preach to the choir.
Always give credit, including links, when using material from other sites. Try to find the original source or author if possible, and give links to them. If you are in doubt about whether you can use something, ask the author. Try to give links to serious articles too, so that people can use your post as a jumping off point to help understand an issue. For example, when posting a political comic, I like to include links that are relevant to the subject. Don’t assume that everyone knows what you are talking about.
Sources
So, where do you look to find ironic political news? On the main page there is a set of links to other sites that post ironic and humorous news, but there are other (more serious) sites that I use to find stories. Here are some of my favorite places:
Electoral Vote. Run by Andy Tannenbaum, an American living in Amsterdam, it has a unique perspective on US politics. Tannenbaum is a fairly well known computer scientist, and his early use of graphics and computer-based analysis has made Electoral Vote one of the most visited political sites on the web. Tannenbaum also helped give Political Irony its start, by writing up a story about it on his main page, which drove so much traffic to the one-week-old site that it crashed my server!
FiveThirtyEight. Nate Silver got famous for handicapping baseball games based on in-depth analysis before he turned his analysis skills to politics. This site is especially useful before an election, when it is the best place to find good polling data, but it is always an interesting read.
Political Wire. Taegan Goddard’s site is the best source for breaking political news.
Talking Points Memo. Good coverage of the issues in more depth.
The PolitiFact Truth-O-Meter. An excellent place to find hypocrisy. I don’t always agree with their ratings, but they do a great job of providing sources for further reading. A good way to discover the truth behind the news.
Media Matters is the best watchdog of the mainstream media, and a great source of hypocrisy.
Fark Politics. Fark is a pretty unreliable source of news, and definitely has an axe to grind, but they do have a taste for the bizarre and fringe stories that nobody else covers.
The Raw Story also has an overt bias, but they have a great sense of humor, while covering current news.
Reddit Politics. A terrible signal-to-noise ratio, but they are usually first out of the gate with new stories. Just take them with a grain of salt.
About.com Late-Night Political Jokes. My only regular feature is “Late Night Political Humor” and I owe a debt of gratitude to Daniel Kurtzman for compiling the jokes.
Go Comics Editorial Cartoons. A good source of editorial cartoons (but also see McClatchy Cartoons and Comics.com).
