April 18, 2010

Think Progress? Think humorlessness.

Want to laugh twice? A comic riff and a laughable failure to perceive that it's a comic riff.

Somehow Think Progress has no trouble seeing that Obama had to be joking when he said "There’s no Armageddon out there" but when Rush Limbaugh pointed to the Icelandic volcano that could only be crackpot religion.

Maybe it's not just humor-deafness. Maybe what Think Progress is letting slip is its own secure confidence that Obama is not a religious man (along with an assumption that Rush Limbaugh is). This gives me an idea for a little poll. This is a completely serious poll, not a joke or an attempt to record which of the 2 men you prefer.

Who's religious, Obama or Limbaugh?
Both men are genuinely religious.
Limbaugh is genuinely religious and Obama is not.
Obama is genuinely religious and Limbaugh is not.
Neither man is religious.
  
pollcode.com free polls

44 comments:

Beaverdam said...

present

Jason (the commenter) said...

It's especially funny because Think Progress would have no problem saying Rush is the Antichrist.

mesquito said...

Geez Louise. Reminds me of the joke about feminists changing lightbulbs.

Alex said...

One thing is a constant these days - liberals sneering at conservatives. Obama as Command in Sneer.

Anonymous said...

Those lefties! Can't take a jökull.

Alex said...

What I love about Althouse is she's unafraid to go after the left & right equally. I think she's a true centrist, and she would agree with that.

I'm Full of Soup said...

A company that employs a humorless scold like Matt Yglesias has no sense of humor?


wv = hoatini = what we say to the niece, Tini, when she gets out there

Big Mike said...

At this time of the morning precisely 100 of us have voted. Precisely zero think Obama is genuinely religious.

Very telling.

rhhardin said...

They're missing what the humor is about, not humor.

Here they don't see Obama's posturing as posturing, so they don't see Rush's imitation as imitation.

I'm Full of Soup said...

Big Mike:

It is telling . I predict a bunch of irregular visitors will soon come here to cast a vote and rescue Obama.

Brian Day said...

Oh, Think Progress has a sense of humor -- when it fits their agenda.

Scott said...

I voted that neither man is religious. But I think Obama goes to church more.

Wince said...

I suppose "Think Progress" was a good name for a site when you were out of power.

Sounds kind of propagandistic when you are in power.

Anonymous said...

The only people who care what Media Matters is doing are liberals who are already convinced that Limbaugh is the second coming of Satan.

I mean, it's like quoting Code Pink, or Bill Ayers. They're looney nuts.

Nobody who matters cares one whit what Media Matters thinks about anything.

Their audience is Chris Matthews and Keith Olberman and maybe 4 other people.

Unknown said...

These people claim they're smarter than us, and they don't know droll when they see it?

No idea whether Rush is religious or not, but, hey, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. The Zero, OTOH, worships the Trinity - Himself, Ayers, and Rev. Wright, but he always does his devotions to the saints - Saint Karl, Saint Nikolai (actually, Saint Vladimir), Saint Josef, Saint Tse-tung...

WV "motoil" What people in Nawlins puts in their cars.

Ben (The Tiger in Exile) said...

Obama isn't religious -- you can tell from a few passages in "The Audacity of Hope". (The part where he wonders about the big bang, for one.)

Limbaugh -- hard to know. He also doesn't sound religious. Maybe a Christmas and Easter Christian at best. Or maybe he's one of the people who thinks it's personal & not something to hector his audience with.

(So I voted for "neither is religious".)

victoria said...

If would be shocked if either person is truly religious. Both the left and the right use religiosity as a weapon and a shield.

Both bogus.


Vicki from Pasadena

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Lincolntf said...

Obama subjecting his children to Reverend Wright's weekly hate fests not withstanding, I don't think either of them is deeply religious.

William said...

I think Limbaugh is non-religious in the way that I am. I respect and, in some ways, envy people who believe in a benevolent God and think that all this chaos is sublimated to some grand design of divine love. Efforts should be made to protect the free speech rights of the village Christians. They are an endangered species....I don't know how deeply Obama holds his non-religious beliefs. I hope he doesn't think that people of faith are all deluded reactionaries. Nonetheless, that's what a lot of his followers think.

MamaM said...

For a narcissist, there is no Higher Power. They believe they alone hold ultimate truth and control human destiny.

Obama appears to me to be more narcissistic than Rush.

MamaM said...

The key to the question is the word *genuinely*.

What is genuine?

1. Really being what it is said to be; actually coming from the alleged source or origin; real; true; authentic; not counterfeit or artificial.

2. Sincere, frank,; honest and forthright (Webster's new 20th)

Based on Obama's behavior, he does not meet the requirements of genuine.

wv: vackole...a gaping hole in character

Opus One Media said...

sorry...but you left off the 5th choice:

5. Limbaugh is a lying weasel who never misses even the slightest opportunity to take a cheap shot.

ricpic said...

No time for humor if you're a Lefty in a desperate hurry to save the world before your time is up.

ricpic said...

Wrong William, Rush is a Christian. He believes in salvation through Christ and makes no bones about it.

MamaM said...

6. Obama is a lying weasel

7. Rush is a lying weasel

8. Obama and Rush are a pair of lying weasels.

9. Obama and Rush invite all to attend the Church of Cheap Shots.

10. HDHouse attends worship at the House of Cheap Shots

11. Some Sundays, I like to be invited there myself.

steve said...

From what I understand, Obama has not been to a church service since he was elected. He called himself Christian because a majority of the country considers itself Christian. His Christianity is phony and he just used it to pretend to identify with the rubes. If a majority of the country had been Wiccan he'd have become a warlock. Kind of like when he needed to become authentically black and joined the Rev. Wright's church. He didn't believe any of that crap either but it served its purpose. Obama obviously believes that most Americans are simple-minded fools. Remember his 2004 Democratic convention speech. The crowd went nuts and I read that when Obama came off the stage he said something like "I can do this". Just tell the rubes what they want to hear and they are yours

Ann Althouse said...

What do you think are the chances that a man who has married and divorced three times is genuinely religious? I'd say very low.

In case it's not clear, I don't think either man is genuinely religious. I would say that both men use religion in their political discourse — in a way that's pretty typical in politics and not abnormally offensive. I understand this political use of religion and tolerate it, but I consider it wrong.

Unknown said...

"If God is not for us and against white people, then he is a murderer, and we had better kill him. The task of black theology is to kill gods who do not belong to the black community. ... Black theology will accept only the love of God which participates in the destruction of the white enemy. "
--- Dr. James Cone.

"[T]here was no separation Biblically and historically and there is no separation contemporaneously between 'religion and politics'. The Word of God has everything to do with racism, sexism, militarism, social justice and the world in which we live daily."
--- Reverend Wright.

Dr. Cone created Black Liberation Theology the doctrine that forms the theological basis of Reverend Wright's Trinity United Church of Christ, which Obama attended for over 20 years.

Obama's "church" is at root an anti-capitalist, anti-whiteness political institution whose core theology includes killing God (among others) if it deems it necessary.

IMHO Obama is far from religious.

LouisAntoine said...

Every time Anne points out one of Rush's "comic riffs" I marvel at how ham-handed, dumb and unfunny they are. He truly is a blowhard.

Rush has a religion: making millions of dollars off the misery of fools.

Ann Althouse said...

@MM They are only unfunny to you because you hate the political views so much. You have no capacity to judge them really, but my point in the post is that it's dumb not to distinguish humor and seriousness -- and the unfunniness of the humor to you is irrelevant to making that distinction. A competent person needs to be able to tell when someone is joking, even when they think the joking is bad joking.

(And I realize that TP may just be pretending not to see the joke in order to do some political posturing. The political posturing would be lame, of course.)

Alex said...

Ann - your attempts at reasoning with MM are a waste of time. He's a pure, humorless ideologue. I guess he sees the humor when Obama mocks the tea partiers.

Kensington said...

"What do you think are the chances that a man who has married and divorced three times is genuinely religious? I'd say very low."

Ann, that's asinine.

If a spouse is determined to end a marriage, how is that a reflection on whether the other spouse is genuinely religious?

LonewackoDotCom said...

Now, for those who want far more effective posts showing how you can't trust ThinkProgress and the Center for American Progress, see those links.

Althouse has Brawndo (and some Brawndo drinkers), I've got facts.

Anonymous said...

I've been thinking about the Obama family's attendance at an Easter worship service and the photographs of them inside the church, including one of all but the youngest daughter bowing their heads in prayer (which will probably appear in future campaign literature). Have we ever seen photographs of another president inside a regular worship service? I don't mean a memorial service or something similar. Every account that I read noted that Obama himself became a focus of the service. No wonder Moxie calls him God, Jr.

I don't think that Rush Limbaugh is a faithful Christian, but his brother David is.

paul a'barge said...

Obama is a muslim in the religion closet.

Paco Wové said...

I'd rather have the Brawndo, thanks.

It's got electrolytes, you know.

Jason (the commenter) said...

Somehow Think Progress has no trouble seeing that Obama had to be joking when he said "There’s no Armageddon out there"

Is that what he was doing, joking? It sounds to me like he was asking God to smite mankind with a disaster if He didn't approve of the recent healthcare reform.

It wasn't funny, it was heresy laden with sarcasm and it was completely inappropriate for the President of the United States to say.

I can only assume that no one picked up on this, become most people in America are atheists pretending to be Christians.

Known Unknown said...

"WV:hoatini"

That's totally a hoagie-flavored martini.

Shanna said...

I had to scroll down thirty posts to see someone say "if that was a joke, it was a pretty funny response to Obama's comment". And I had to open that post, because it was "voted down" whatever that means. Wow. Dense people over there.

Anonymous said...

Obama had a chance to go to church yesterday because it was deemed unsafe to travel to the funeral in Poland, but he chose to golf instead. It was the 32nd time he has golfed since January 20, 2009.

Methadras said...

Leftards are humorless pricks.

Mitch H. said...

Can't I suspect Obama isn't religious without knowing it, and have honestly no idea or opinion about Limbaugh's religion or lack thereof?

To be honest, I listen to wosshisname, Glenn Beck more than Limbaugh - I don't even know when the latter's on the air. Beck seems to be genuinely religious, to the point where he seems to suffer from millenarian fever.

And frankly, somebody can be both very religious & very bad at maintaining the mores thereof. They're called Baptists.

Eric said...

At this time of the morning precisely 100 of us have voted. Precisely zero think Obama is genuinely religious.

Every president goes to church and mouths bland sort-of-Christian niceties. It's sort of a cultural thing at this point, and I doubt many people, religious or not themselves, put much stock in it.

There are only two presidents in my lifetime that I suspect had any sort of genuine belief - Carter and GWB, and in GWB's case it came well into middle age.