Prometheus 6

Indeed, as I sat down to write these words, there beeped into my mailbox an e-mail with this subject line: "WOW, The New Yorker got it exactly right, for once." Said without a trace of irony....

Somewhere between the stained blue dress and the vice president shooting a guy in the face, between swift boat lies and "war on terra" alibis, the absurd became the ordinary, facts became optional and satire became superfluous.

When hysteria and satire meet
By LEONARD PITTS JR.

"I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled . . . ''

-- Jonathan Swift,
A Modest Proposal, 1729

Satire is tricky. It makes its point by exaggerating wildly with a straight face. In inflating a thing beyond all common sense or propriety, it seeks to render inconsistencies and hypocrisies glaringly apparent. Satire seeks truth in the ridiculous. For illustration, see any given episode of The Colbert Report.

What makes satire difficult is that sometimes, people don't realize they are being had. Jonathan Swift's Modest Proposal, for instance, had some convinced he wanted to eat babies; they didn't realize he was actually attacking people's blithe unconcern with the plight of the poor. For that matter, when All In the Family came along 2 ½ centuries later, some folks saw Archie as the soul of reason.