Over the last few days, Glenn Reynolds has, between chugging fresh puppy smoothies, been touting how blogger FrankJ of IMAO’s e-book, “Obama: The Greatest President In The History Of Everything,” has been beating Bill Maher’s book on Amazon’s sales charts.
I took a look at that list, and I started noticing two things: one, Amazon has a rather loose definition of “political humor; and two, those folks who say that conservatives have no sense of humor are full of crap.
Out of the top 20, the following are indisputably conservative:
1) Frank J. Fleming, “Obama: The Greatest President in the History of Everything.”
3) Scott Ott, “Laughing at Obama: Volume 1”
6) P. J. O’Rourke, “Don’t Vote: It Only Encourages The Bastards”
8) Glenn Beck, “Arguing With Idiots”
11) P. J. O’Rourke, “Parliament of Whores: A Lone Humorists Attempts to Explain the Entier U.S. Government”
13) Glenn Beck, “Broke”
20) Laura Ingraham, “The Obama Diaries.”
So that’s 7 of 20. 35%. Not very impressive, huh?
Well, let’s take a look at the ones I’d consider “non-partisan” — as in, not tied into the current left-right divide.
4) “Flatland” was originally published in 1884, and is about Victorian England.
5) “NO Roads Lead To Rome” — a satire set in the ancient Roman empire.
7) “At Wit’s End” is from the late, great Erma Bombeck.
10), “Secret Lives of the U.S. Presidents” and
19), “Secret Lives of the First Ladies” are humorous takes on history.
14) “Signing Their Lives Away” is about the signers of the Declaration of Independence.
15) “Dave Barry’s Greatest Hits.” ‘Nuff said. I’m not quite certain of Barry’s political leanings, and I’ve read a LOT of his stuff. He makes fun of everybody and everything.
16) “Gasoline, Texas.” From what I can tell, more of a satire of Texas politics than really ideologically based.
17) “I Sleep In Hitler’s Room — An American Jew Visits Germany.” Again, not really left-right.
18) “A Treasury Of Great American Scandals.” Like the “Secret Lives” books, this one looks to be more humorous looks at history.
There goes another 10 — a full 50% of the total. That leaves just three to be considered unabashedly “liberal:”
2) “New Rules: Polite Musings for a Timid Observer,” from renowned asshole Bill Maher.
9) “A Tea People’s History,” a satire of American history as seen through a liberal stereotype of the Tea Party movement.
12) “How to Win a Fight With A Conservative,” a mocking look at the right. (It should be noted that the author previously published “How To Win A Fight With A Liberal,” so he’s no partisan hack.)
Even if I give them “Gasoline, Texas,” that means on the top 20 list of “political humor” books, 7 are conservative and 4 are liberal. And of the top 10, it’s 4 vs. 2.
And leading the way? Two bloggers!
Man, do we rock, or what?
