If t makes anyone feel any better, our old friend Cal Thomas picked up on this thing in his column in this mornings newspaper. Ol’ Cal doesn’t think it was funny either. See Scylla you have company.
Linkage
Quoting Cal out of context:
As a person who remembers the Korean War, lived through the Cold War and the Great Red Scare, the Civil Rights Movement, the Impeach Warren Berger Movement, the War in Vietnam, the Iran Hostage Crisis, aid to the Central American despots, aid to the Central American Contras, and who has at least read about the Isolationists and the German-American Bund, the Great Depression, the struggle for recognition of trade unions, use of state and federal troops to break up strikes, the fruit cake John Birtch types, the terrible fight to get the Sherman Anti-Trust Act and the National Labor Relations Act, the obvious response to the above is:
WHY IS THAT UNFAIR?
You’ll understand when you’re older.
Go way, kid, you’re bothering me. 
Well, that’s what they always told me. I’m 55 now, and beginning to get a bit impatient. The only thing I seem to understand better is how stupid I used to be. Cold comfort.
Used to be?
It was easy to tell that elucidator’s OP was in jest- it didn’t have any cutesy nicknames for Bush’s staff or any references to “invisible pink unicorns” like his serious posts usually do.
Even though I’ve been on and off these boards for quite some now, I don’t know many posters’ political leanings. The only thing I remember are about the following posters:
auntie em: has(had) a really fucked up coworker who ran off without a word. auntie em herself seems to be pretty caring and patient.
gobear: is gay (seriously, that’s all i remember).
december: is very conservative, but seems to be polite about it. And I only remember this much because everyone seems to mention it.
So, I didn’t remember anything about elucidator when I read the OP, and I frankly thought elucidator was a conservative making fun of an extremely liberal interpretation of a study. I don’t really see what was so mean-spirited about it, since the whole thing was just so absurd.
Besides, conservatism is clearly not a mental disorder, it is merely a personality disorder
[ducks and runs]
New Iskander, I found the subtle humour in the OP hilarious. Your additions, however, were eye-rollingly excessive. I felt like someone had taken off their shoe and was bashing me over the head, repeating “THIS IS A JOKE!! THIS IS A JOKE!!”
I don’t wish to make any generalisations, but the conservatives in this thread aren’t establishing a very good name for themselves.
(shouting)I’m not really a conservative! Conservatives are innocent!(falling on his Exacto knife)
I have no idea what you’re on about here. The humour I’ve had in reading this thread is somewhat dependent upon knowing of posters’ political leanings, it is true, but I have not engaged in any judging of posts based on the political affiliation of posters. Rather, much of the (unintentional) humour in this thread is the result of some posters judging the OP based on the OP’s political leanings rather than on its merits. The political leanings of the former posters adds rather a lot of humourous irony to the thread. I’m terribly sorry if you are unable to follow my sense of humour. If it makes you feel better, you’re not the only one with insufficient wit to understand it - my ex-gf couldn’t either.
And I’m sure you people think that “Doonsebury” is the ultimate expression of literature, high art and biting political satire instead of the predictable leftist tripe that it is.
This joke is OK, because it is balanced; OP joke was bad, because it had poor balance.
I really don’t know how to make it more simple.
You belittle my wit for not getting your sense of humor and at the same time admit of your troubles with ex-gf for not getting it either. That’s a balanced joke.
OP goes to abuse political opponents as mental retards for 5 paragraphs and at the end admits only to being generally clueless as to how remedy anything. That’s not a balanced joke.
Mind, I didn’t criticize the vitriol; I gave vitriol high mark. If one is mad at opponents and has to vent, like ‘Spavined Gelding’, I understand. It’s the pretense to “good-natured” joke that I found false.
Say again all after WTF. Over.
What in the Nine Hells is this “balance” of which you speak? Please don’t tell me some pseudo-intellectual asshat suffering from an acute case of humour deficiency has actually attempted to construct a comprehensive Theory of Jokes, where the necessity for “balance” underlies the main premise in Chapter 3, Balance: The Actualization of the Dialectic in Humour. Fucking Hegelians. When the revolution comes, they’ll be first against the wall if I have anything to say about it.
Oh, and you completely misunderstood the thing about my ex - I was belittling you by lumping you in with the loathsome category of people labelled as “ex”, but doing it in a syntactical structure most commonly used to make favourable comparisons. That’s not balance. The first part of the joke put you down, and the second part put you down even more, though the structure of the second part suggests initially that it won’t be a putdown. I guess you really do have trouble understanding jokes. Keep at it, though - tis a noble quest you’re on, and perhaps you may acquire a real understanding of humanity, right after you figure out how to whistle.
Gorsnak,
Good job. You get 8 of possible 10 for vitriol.
Only please don’t tell me it was “good-natured”.
I do know how to whistle. Not very loud, though.
Sure it was good-natured. You just didn’t get the pop culture reference, is all. And it wasn’t even particulary obscure. Tsk tsk. 
Presently, the Wall List does include Hegelians, but not as a general category, as it includes deconstructionists and string theorists as well. Marxists and Objectivists, it need not be said, are at the top of the list, after an appropriate opportunity for repentence and re-education. (The demonstrated capacity to sing the entire Monty Python “Philosopher’s Song” will, of course, be grounds for immediate and unconditional pardon…)
Refer to Comrade Diogenes for details on list maintanance.
I dont get it, and I refuse to ask my smart-ass kid.
Gorsnak,
I didn’t “didn’t get the pop culture reference”, but I take your word for it.
As for “good-natured”, you get 1 of possible 10.
You did get ahead for a moment, but now you and ‘elucidator’ are running nose to nose.