I’m a new listener, from the USA, but I quickly became addicted to your show. I really like it. And even though I don’t totally agree with your politics, I think your show is well done, and I hope you’ll be able to do at least 100 more. Below are a two points I’d like to regarding your comments about humor:

1. You started off by asking rhetorically if making fun of something serious and even dangerous might be in bad taste. I think that making jokes about serious subjects isn’t by definition bad taste. It’s all a matter of how you do it. If you make fun of Islamists, their fatwas, their violence and intolerance, there’s nothing wrong with that. If a leftist were to mock Bush, Blair or Israel, that would be legit, too. I guess the line can be drawn where cutting humor becomes cruelty. If you were to make fun of casualties on any side of any conflict, for instance, or heap personal abuse on those who disagree with you, that would be in bad taste.  Or if you tortured innocent cats, that would be in bad taste. But I’ve never heard any of that on your show.

2. You say that humor is a good weapon because it especially annoys the Islamists. That may well be true, but I think humor is a good weapon for another reason: Being funny is often the best way of saying something serious.  If you presented things in an unrelentingly serious manner, it’s possible that you’d lose a good part of your audience. You’d just be like any other pundit or blogger who screams and berates or just drones on and on, so many of your listeners would eventually tune you out. But humor makes people sit up and pay attention. An opinion expressed cleverly will always impress people more, and if it’s humorous to boot it will appear cleverer to boot. Even people who aren’t politically conservative will laugh with you in spite of themselves, and then because they’ve laughed with you, they’ll have to admit that there’s something in what you say.

One last thing: I’m glad that there’s a liberal (albeit a moderate liberal) on the show, but I am disappointed to hear that Meryl voted for George Bush and is contemplating getting a handgun. Well, not me. I’m never voting Republican! Yechhhhhh. Vote for George Bush? Meryl, how could you? I mean, you’re entitled to your own opinions and all that. But how could you? That's a line I'd never cross.

God! I can never seem to get the spacing between paragraphs right!

Joanne, thanks for your comments.  I can't comment on Meryl's choice of presidential candidates (other than to say "atta' girl"), but you are dead on with respect to using humor to make a point.  People who would otherwise disagree and tune out a straight-on opinion piece may stick around for a bit of comedy with a political message.

What I will note, however, is that the approach doesn't always work.  If the opinion you're expressing is just way over the line, no amount of humor will make it palatable.   Just ask Al Franken.

Thanks, Doug. I understand your point. However...

It's often not a question of humor being over the line, but of relative distance on the ideological spectrum. Al Franken's opinions may be over the line to you, but SNN's opinions might well be over the line to him. I don't know much about Al Franken, as I was never very interested in him, so I don't know how far to the left he actually is. But the point remains that, even with side-splitting comedy, SNN will never convince a listener who can't tolerate anything to the right of Daily Kos or Counterpunch, or who thinks Cindy Sheehan is today's Joan of Arc.

But I wasn't thinking of people like that. I was thinking of people who can at least see some value in what you're saying, even if they don't totally share your worldview. I was thinking of people who could say "I disagree with you on this, but I agree with you on that." Someone like  Nick Cohen, for instance. What am I saying? Someone like me! I was also thinking of people who, whatever their political coloration, are well-informed enough, mature enough, and broad-minded enough to listen thoughtfully to other points of view when intelligently expressed. Uh, again, someone like me.

OK, so you don't find Al Franken funny. He'll probably never be a big fan of SNN. But who cares? You can still reach a broad range of the ideological spectrum, even if you can't reach all the way to the hard left.

Of course, when I said "someone like me," I was kidding about the "well-informed enough, mature enough," etc., but I should explain what I meant. I am a social democrat, and sometimes I even dare to call myself a democratic socialist. But I'm also pro-Zionist and no fan of the Islamists. So, while left-of-center myself, you can see why I wouldn't feel at home on many leftist websites, where extreme anti-Zionism seems to be an obsession. And that's why I can appreciate SNN.

Happy 100,  SNN!

Great show - especially the panel conversation. It's like BBC question time, but with sane people.

Here's to SNN 200!

 xxx

Congrats on the 100th! Still the best podcast in the universe!

Congrats on the 100th! Still the best podcast in the universe!

Great comments, Joanne, but your criticism of the US president so far amounts to "yech."

Draw Joanne out with an interview perhaps?  If shown how socialism hurts people, she could be on the verge of a Yourish conversion.

 Congrats SNN.  I've listened to all 100, and will tip appropriately momentarily.  (In accordance with the instructions of KARL ROVE-ROVe-ROve-Rove-rove.)