Confessions of a cute and brainy comic

In case you've fallen behind on your National Review reading, don't miss a critical review of Laughing Liberally entitled Soap's Up: A crass lefty comedy tour, by David Finnigan. And in case you haven't heard of me, I am "Cute" and "brainy" Katie Halper. As "the lineup's only woman, and only profanity-free comic" I feel it's best for me to respond to the review as I'm afraid that the dirty-mouthed comics of Laughing Liberally would write something along the lines of: "*&^% you!" "What the *&^% are you talking about?" "Are we really supposed to give a &*%$ about offending Ann Coulter?"

I did not, contrary to popular belief, get my liberal feminist panties all up in a bunch upon reading this review. I am brainy enough to know when I've been busted. And I actually agree with the review.
I admit, "The whole show was a bit of a crude cliché. All the comics easily fit into MTV-assigned Real World stereotypes: the Arab-American talked about 9/11...." Just like every other half Palestinian-American, half Italian-American-Catholic comic, Dean Obeidallah mentioned 9/11, an event irrelevant to the rest of the population. He should just shut up because nobody cares about 9/11 any more. It's so 2001. Likewise, "the black comic [Shang] was angry.... He praised praised North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il's fashion sense (`His style is so pimp!'). Shang's dirty mouth and gold chain imprisoned him in black stereotypes." So, Shang, take it from a National Review "brother" who knows: you have nothing to lose but your gold chains. So ditch them and buy yourself some Banana Republic clothes. To clean your mouth, try this replacing pimp with procurer. It sounds just as cool to say "Kim Jong-il's style is--"so procurer."

I, perhaps, am the biggest stereotype of all. "The cute woman was a little brainy." I am guilty of jumping on the cute woman who is a little brainy comic bandwagon. I try so hard not to join the club of female comics who stand up on stage and talk about nothing but Iranian diplomacy and the United States Supreme Court. I wish I could talk about things female comics never talk about like boys, dieting and bikini waxes. But we are all products of our society, and seeing my fellow female comics talk exclusively about Darfur and Plamegate makes it hard for me to tackle the harder issues female comics shy away from.

Not only are we walking stereotypes, but we are mean, going after defenseless targets like The Governator. The article raises a key question: "San Francisco comedian Will Durst mocked California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's Austrian accent Would they have done that to a Hispanic?." Well, Will. Would you have? I don't think so. But why not be as culturally sensitive to Austrians as you are to Latinos. Just like their Hispanic hermanos, Austrians, especially those in Hollywood and political office, are victims of cultural and institutional racism. Every time somebody mocks "It's not a tumor!" anti-Austrian prejudice is perpetuated.

The comics even went after Ann Coulter. Which is just mean. I think that one thing conservatives and liberals can agree on is that Coulter is the Mother Teresa of punditry. But, believe it or not, the show ended with "a gay comic's routine featuring riffs on Ann Coulter. He said Coulter hails from "Planet [expletive, rhymes with hunt]" and that the next Republican National Convention would be held `in her vagina.' The audience forgave the vaginal jokes, and instead hissed upon hearing Coulter's name." Maybe the audience forgave Jim David (the "gay comic" who "camped it up") for his Anne Coulter v_ _ _ _ _ jokes. But I do not condone the "liberal use of obscenities that would make Ann Coulter, and her mother, blush." A former NRO contributor, Coulter is the most sensitive representative of the right, and never says anything that would make herself or her mother blush. This should come as no surprise since she admits, "Christianity fuels everything I write." Her Christian values, in fact, were behind her suggestion that the U.S. "should invade [Muslims'] countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity." Such What would Jesus do reflecting, "ended her relationship" with the National Review.

It is especially inappropriate to make fun of her v_ _ _ _ _, since Coulter is so respectful of her gender, even though we are "not as smart as men." Coulter refuses to reduce women to sex objects. Referring to women whose husbands died on 9/11, Coulter writes, "And by the way, how do we know their husbands weren't planning to divorce these harpies? Now that their shelf life is dwindling, they'd better hurry up and appear in Playboy.... " Unlike "crass comics" from the left, this noble pundit from the right shies away from vulgar cheap shots: "Women like Pamela Harriman and Patricia Duff are basically Anna Nicole Smith from the waist down. Let's just call it for what it is. They're whores." All in all, the left can learn from Coulter's nuanced rhetoric: "Clinton is in love with the erect penis" and "masturbates in sinks." We liberals should stop cursing, put down our New York Times, and emulate Coulter's tact: "My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times building."

This is bold, not base. It is one thing for former National Review righters like Coulter to be offensive; for Bill O'Reilly to have a dirty mouth, write erotic thrillers like Those who Trespass and flatter his coworker: "You have really spectacular b- - - -... I'd wanna take a shower with you...I would get your n- - - - - - really hard. I would take the falafel thing, and I'd put in on your p- - - -;" and for Whitehouse favorite, journalist-cum-prostitute Jeff Gannon-cum-James Guckert to get paid to "take care of a horny bottom". Conservative pundits and "journalists" are allowed--no, supposed--to be crass, vulgar and/ or escorts. But it is irresponsible and unforgivable for comics to curse. I still haven't forgiven Lenny Bruce.

So the question is, why do we curse? "Didn't our moms tell us that the only people who used four-letter words were the ones who didn't have anything more intelligent to say? Some Democratic friends recently did their best to rehabilitate that maternal axiom" at Laughing Liberally. It's true. We do grasp at curse words only when we can't think of anything intelligent to say. President Bush never curses. While a Democrat would have told Michael Brown, the former chief of the ironically titled Federal Emergency Management Agency, he was doing a "hell of a job," a considerate Bush said, "Brownie. You're doing a heck of a job." Such profanity-free speech expresses the character and intelligence of our president, and reminds us why he should not be "misunderestimated". It shows us that he's "cute" and "a little brainy." I'll admit it: he's my inspiration.

So the next time I hear my fellow liberal comics use a curse word, I will turn to them, call forth the great words my Vice-President once delivered to Patrick Leahy on the Senate floor and say: "Go f- - - yourself!"