Political Irony

At the Supreme Court today, Justice Scalia was either playing straight man to give the ACLU lawyer the laugh line, or else he is just showing why people call him the most conservative justice on a very conservative court.

The case involves a large cross that was erected on public land as a war memorial. Some non-Christians objected to the placement of the cross on public land, saying that a cross is a religious symbol and cannot represent their war dead. But Scalia disagrees:

Scalia: The cross doesn’t honor non-Christians who fought in the war? Is that — is that —

Eliasberg: I believe that’s actually correct.

Scalia: Where does it say that?

Eliasberg: It doesn’t say that, but a cross is the predominant symbol of Christianity and it signifies that Jesus is the son of God and died to redeem mankind for our sins, and I believe that’s why the Jewish war veterans —

Scalia: It’s erected as a war memorial. I assume it is erected in honor of all of the war dead. It’s the — the cross is the — is the most common symbol of — of — of the resting place of the dead, and it doesn’t seem to me — what would you have them erect? A cross — some conglomerate of a cross, a Star of David, and you know, a Moslem half moon and star?

Eliasberg: Well, Justice Scalia, if I may go to your first point. The cross is the most common symbol of the resting place of Christians. I have been in Jewish cemeteries. There is never a cross on a tombstone of a Jew.

At this point, the court broke out in laughter.

And of course, Stephen Colbert gives his unique perspective on this legal quandary:

Last month, we reported on how Newt Gingrich’s organization, American Solutions for Winning the Future, had named Allison Vivas, president of a porn superstore, a 2009 Entrepreneur of the Year and invited her to a private dinner “in recognition of the risks you take to create jobs and stimulate the economy”. But they must not have wanted to stimulate the economy that much; they quickly backpedaled and took back the award after it hit the press.

In return, Vivas’ company has created a special award for Gingrich, naming him the “Family Values Porn Fan of the Year, 2009”. They even created a plaque for him.

There is no doubt that Gingrich deserves the award, considering his “family values” (as reported by Washington Monthly):

The most notorious of them all is undoubtedly Gingrich, who ran for Congress in 1978 on the slogan, “Let Our Family Represent Your Family.” (He was reportedly cheating on his first wife at the time). In 1995, an alleged mistress from that period, Anne Manning, told Vanity Fair’s Gail Sheehy: “We had oral sex. He prefers that modus operandi because then he can say, ‘I never slept with her.'” Gingrich obtained his first divorce in 1981, after forcing his wife, who had helped put him through graduate school, to haggle over the terms while in the hospital, as she recovered from uterine cancer surgery. In 1999, he was disgraced again, having been caught in an affair with a 33-year-old congressional aide while spearheading the impeachment proceedings against President Clinton.

But the best part is that Vivas plans on sending a followup letter rescinding the award, and offering the explanation that this particular honor was not intended for fans of their (NSFW) “Wife Switch” DVD series.

Here is a video making the rounds of the innertubes called “Why Homosexuality Should Be Banned”:

Yes, of course it is being sarcastic — the clear intent is to make fun of arguments against gay rights. But what’s really ironic are the comments — there are over 12 thousand of them already on YouTube — that think the video is serious. I don’t know what is funnier, gay rights supporters who are bashing the video, or homophobes who are praising it. It is unclear if these people watched the video; some of them couldn’t be bothered to take the time and were just reacting to the title, but seemed to find the time to comment about it, but I’m sure that some people watched it and still didn’t get it.

Also enjoyable are the people commenting about the people who think it is serious. Although even most of those comments don’t manage to rise above the level of name calling. Like

Haha good one, look at all them folks taking this seriously… you know satire is dangerous cause stupid people don’t get it.

Personally, I think we need a video “Why Satire on the Internet Should Be Banned”. After all, how many innocent people are needlessly fooled by The Onion?

Why is it the best articles about American politics come from the foreign press? Is it because you need a little distance in order to get a good perspective, or is it that the US press just really sucks?

Anyway, there is a very good article written by a British journalist about Glenn Beck. The whole article is worth a read, but there was one part in particular that caught my attention:

In the end, I wonder if Beck even wants to win. Like most cult leaders, he is happiest playing the role of the Great Misunderstood Prophet, whose people are forever consigned to roam the wilderness. Occasionally, they may glimpse the Promised Land, but they can never make it their home—for if they did, they might realize that they need a new leader. In a curious way, then, Beck’s status depends on Obama’s success. Nothing else can advance his agenda as effectively as the president achieving his goals. Whether Beck’s audience appreciates this apparent paradox is a different matter.

We’ve seen this paradox in the right wing in other areas. For example, the fact that the fundamentalist Christians work so hard to elect right-wing politicians, who never seem to be able to pass any of the fundamentalist agenda (outlawing abortion, gay marriage, etc.). They need these people to be riled up in order to donate money and work for their election, but — like Glenn Beck — they don’t actually want to win.

UPDATE: Or as Rush Limbaugh just put it “Lord, thank you for my enemies”.