So, uh, hurricanes and so forth. In other news, Jonah Goldberg has said something on the Internet... and it is dumb!
As I am something of a fan of Internet Humor, please allow me to demonstrate why this Jonah Goldberg column is a Funny Joke. Below, I provide a set of direct quotes: Jonah's Setups, and then His Punchline.
You will laugh!
Texas governor Rick Perry is the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination now, at least in the national polls. Undoubtedly that’s the main reason so many East Coast pundits and Beltway wags are making fun of him. He likes guns! He’s from Texas! He talks funny! He’s a — gird yourself now — Christian!
SETUP.
Rick Perry’s overt Christianity horrifies many of his liberal critics. Bill Keller, the outgoing editor of the New York Times, agonized recently that “Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum are all affiliated with fervid subsets of evangelical Christianity.
SETUP.
Perry’s twang offends liberals who think everyone should talk like Barack Obama, a man of cosmopolitan and learned diction.
SETUP.
Obama’s gaffes earn no traction the way, say, the last president’s “Bushisms” did. Nor do they cause bowel-stewing panic at MSNBC the way Sarah Palin’s flavorful patois does.
SETUP.
And don’t even get me started on Joe Biden.
SETUP.
A lot of people on the East and West coasts are bigots and snobs about “flyover types.” They equate funny accents with stupidity, and they automatically assume someone who went to Texas A&M must be dumber than someone who went to Yale. Overt displays of religion trigger their fight-or-flight instincts, causing them to lash out irrationally.
AND THE HILARIOUS PUNCHLINE...
... HE ACTUALLY SAYS THIS:
Conservatism is starting to have an identity-politics problem all its own.
!