The Humorless Logic of Ann Coulter

As many have pointed out, there's nothing much new to say about Ann Coulter's latest bit of vile rhetoric in and of itself. She's made it painfully clear how unpleasant a human being she is, at least in her public persona (I've come to think she doesn't really believe much of anything, but, like a pidgeon in a Skinner box, simply behaves in ways that have proven rewarding in the past.)

There are two larger points to make. One is about the use of the word "faggot" as part of the larger right wing mode of using gender stereotypes as a means of attack. It's telling that, on Fox News, Young America's Foundation spokesman Jason Mattera defended Coulter by saying she wasn't smearing gay people. Rather, "she was basically calling John Edwards a wuss, that he was a girlie-man, and that if he were elected president he would probably embolden Al Qaeda to attack us."

Ah, well that's just so much better, isn't it? The smear wasn't at gay men, but simply an equation of the feminine with weakness and ineptitude! If that's an actual defense of Coulter, then she doesn't need any attackers.

I'd say more about this, but there are already a couple of good posts on this wider issue, one from Glenn Greenwald at Salon and by blogger Digby.

The other brief point to note is how Coulter, as she and so many others have done in such circumstances, falls back on the defense of "it was a joke."

But, the thing is, it wasn't. And I don't mean that it's not a joke because "faggot" is such an ugly term that no use of it could possibly be construed as a joke. I mean as a matter of logic, what Coulter said wasn't a joke.

As comedy writer, ex-radio host, and current senatorial candidate Al Franken often noted on his Air America show, jokes have an interior logic. They have a premise of some sort that makes the humor work. Even if a joke isn't funny, one can still see how it theoretically *could* be funny.

Here's what she said:

I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential
candidate, John Edwards, but it turns out that you have to go into
rehab if you use the word "faggot."

Now, there *is* a bit of humor logic here, specifically the use of hyperbole in the suggestion that saying the word automatically in "rehab." It's not funny, but it's at least operating in a way that follows (just barely) the logic of a joke.

But that has nothing to do with the central component of the comment, which is using "faggot" as a term of contempt for someone you don't like. There is nothing humorous about this, not simply because of the ugliness of the comment, but because there is literally no joke there on a logical level.

Saying something outrageously ugly does not constitute a joke by itself. One could *make* it funny by putting it into a humorous context, but to defend Coulter's remarks by saying that they constituted a joke is about as offensive to professional comedy writers as Coulter's original comments were to . . . well . . . just about anyone with a social conscience.