The point I was trying to make was that I thought it was unfair that Christina D was ridiculed for being sensitive to Palin bashing. People who are sensitive to making fun of Palin believe that she has been treated unfairly by a biased media. Personally, I think there is some truth to that, and I’m not even a Palin fan. In fact, I think most of the Palin stuff is really very funny, and she is the most colorful character this election season by a mile. Rather, I see the reactions by Palin supporters being more about feeling henpecked than inventing the issue because of some ultra-conservative hypersensitivity.

As far as your motivations, I agree with you that they don’t matter. Your quotation of my previous post contains the key words “for some.” The “some” that I am referring to are those people who think you’re being unfair and who question your motivations. Personally, I have no idea where your motivations are, and I couldn’t care less. I read your stuff because it’s smart and usually pretty funny, not because I think we think alike (the horror…).

However, I slightly disagree with your parsing of bias and opinion in the comedic process. By your own admission, you make jokes based on how you think the public perceives the targets. In other words, it’s your perception of the public’s perception. That first step, where the writer ascribes a certain opinion TO his audience on a certain subject, is what colors the tone of the material. The ability to read the public’s perception of things is what makes a good writer, but there will always be people who don’t fall into the category you’ve created–whether it’s Sarah Palin, movie reviews, Victoria’s Secret ads, etc. And that’s a good thing, after all, because what would the world be like without angry letters?

Clumpy: Fair enough. Without any context I only had the words to go on and unfairly charactarized you. I apologize. My sense is that you, as a conservative who despises neo-cons, and I, as a conservative-leaning Libertarian who wants less government and a stronger economy, agree more than we disagree.

I am frustrated this election season with the villianization that goes on and how much that obscures the issues at hand. It bothers me that, with so many important things at stake in this election, the rhetoric is so dumbed down.

“Barack Obama now says he is open to offshore oil drilling. So, apparently, when he promised change, he was talking about his mind.” –Jay Leno

“Well, the Democrats are now preparing for their convention in Denver, and they have hired the first ever director of greening. They say that this year that everything about their convention will be green, including nominating a candidate who’s only been a senator for a couple of years.” –Jay Leno

“Senator Obama answered doubts about his inexperience by saying he has gained tremendous insight from his work as a community organizer, civil rights attorney, constitutional law professor, key club president, 4H treasurer, lunch room monitor, two years of jazz, and four years of tap.” –Amy Poehler

Anyway – this isn’t really the place to attack Palin. Eric knows by now that merely mentioning a political figure in any context, even in a largely non-political one, gets the loonies (myself included) crawling out of the woodwork and screaming “REDRUM!!!”

Q, I won’t mischaracterize you as a neocon attack dog who screams “bias” at the earliest opportunity if you don’t think of me as a mudslinging, insubstantial progressive character assassin, awright? Have a nice day and I’ll go breathe into a paper bag or something.

If people are still unsure of my motivations even after reading a blog post explaining my motivations, then I’m not sure what else I can do.

I explained that very little about Obama and Biden had jumped out as funny enough for me — someone who doesn’t write very much about politics anyway — to make a joke about. If I made it a practice to write lots and lots of political humor, then yeah, I’d probably try harder to find more jokes covering more angles. But that’s not how I write. I write about whatever occurs to me. And this year, Palin has been a more colorful figure than anyone else.

I also postulated that this is why the late-night talk shows haven’t made much fun of Obama, either. Now, you can argue that it’s REALLY because they’re biased, but then you’d have to explain away all the Democrats they’ve made fun of in the past, and the Republicans they’ve failed to make fun of. I think my explanation — that you make fun of whoever it’s easiest to make fun of, regardless of ideology — makes more sense. And not to pull rank, but I have more experience writing comedy than you do. I know how it works. I know what the thought process is. You look at what your audience’s general perception is, and you make jokes based on that.

Someone ranted (for example):

You cuold always make fun of how he is a constitutional lecture guy, but doesn’t actually vote for constitutional type of things. how about voting for dumping babies in trash cans?

Even if that’s a true description of Obama, it doesn’t matter, because it’s not how the public perceives him. Any jokes you made based on that premise wouldn’t work if the audience didn’t see that as being the underlying truth.

Now, some audiences are more specialized than others. When I write stuff for Glenn Beck’s magazine, I often don’t think the premises they give me reflect what the average American thinks. But I know they DO reflect what the typical Glenn Beck reader thinks, so I make jokes that will strike a chord with those people.

So if a great many of my readers here at EricDSnider.com are conservative, why don’t I make a greater effort to tailor my jokes to fit that? Because I don’t care. The site is called EricDSnider.com. It’s built around my opinions — usually on movies and pop culture, not politics, but still, my opinions. That’s how it’s always been, and how it always will be. If readers don’t like my opinions, they will presumably stop visiting the site. (Or, in some cases, they’ll keep visiting it just so they can intensify their hatred of me. Hi, Lahimatoa!)

I am not now, nor have I ever been, under an obligation to be “fair” or “unbiased” in my joke-making. There is a perception that I have often tried to make fun of all sides equally, and that’s been true of some subjects — usually subjects I didn’t have very strong feelings about one way or the other anyway. And I’m TELLING you that in this case, there simply haven’t been many instances of obvious things to make fun of Obama for, while there have been instances aplenty of things to make fun of Palin for.

You are welcome to not believe me, I guess. But I don’t know why I’d lie when I could just as easily say, “I’m intentionally not making fun of Obama because I support him and I want him to win, and you can like it or lump it.” That is something I would say, after all, if it were true.

Maybe I subconsciously don’t see the Obama jokes because I subconsciously don’t want to say anything bad about him? You can go with that theory if it’ll make you feel better. I don’t think that’s it, though. I mean, there are plenty of things I support and believe in that I still see humorous aspects of.

Here’s what it ultimately boils down to:

If you think the best way to get me to stop making Sarah Palin jokes is to whine constantly about my making Sarah Palin jokes, then you must not be as familiar with my work as you think you are.

And if you think I’ve never been this “biased” before, then I think you’re misunderstanding the definition of that word. The only difference between a “bias” and an “opinion” is that a bias is unfair — and fairness is irrelevant in a context where you had no reason to expect fairness in the first place. That is to say, if this were a news website, then yes, you could reasonably expect me to try not to let my opinions show, and you’d have a leg to stand on when you complained that I had.

But this isn’t a news website. It’s EricDSnider.com. I’m going to write about — and make jokes about — whatever it occurs to me, Eric D. Snider, to write and make jokes about. You are more than welcome to express disagreement with those opinions. But you can’t expect me to change them or suppress them simply because you disagree with them. And if you came in here expecting me to only make jokes about some things and not others, or to make jokes about everything equally, then I’m sorry, but that’s not how it works. You should adjust your expectations in that respect.

Villianization is one of the biggest problems in our body politic today, IMO.

Ironically, making fun of Sarah Palin because you “hate everything she stands for” is exactly what’s at the crux of this debate. While the jury is still out for some on what Eric’s motivations are, you’ve left no question on yours.

And let me just rant for a moment (this is not directed at you, Clumpy).
What ever happened being able to disagree with people without demonizing/belittling/slandering them? Playing that card is a mental shortcut around actually discussing and understanding controversial issues. The Moveon.org faction of liberals has been making a hyperactive attempt to demonize conservatives for nearly a decade. Watching the media/liberals change their view toward McCain once he became the Republican candidate has been fascinating to watch. It suggests that, to them, everything is relative and anything can be justified. Playing the race card, stuffing the ballot box, class warfare–it’s all fair game. It’s an approach to power that makes a Libertarian like me cringe.

It’s still not hard to use the idea. The man voted “present” on how many issues at a state level? And has taken few, if any hard stances on anything. But by golly, he believes in hope and the future and he’s not GWB. Because he believes in hope