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Pity the Parodist
"Serious" news and commentary are so ridiculous, how can anyone keep up?
By JAMES TARANTO, WSJ
The U.S. Navy's Easter rescue of freighter captain Richard Phillips, and the killing of three of the pirates...did not engender warm feelings for America among the pirate community. Commentary's Abe Greenwald had a post late yesterday riffing off a New York Times article quoting piratical threats of revenge: This is pirate blowback! Did the president think we could use billion-dollar equipment to shoot some raggedy ransom-seekers out of their rowboat without inviting retaliation? By flaunting our material superiority we merely whet their appetites for treasure. And by demonstrating that we value one American life more than three Somali lives we've turned a handful of desperate thieves into a sympathetic movement with recruitment potential. And all for the sake of one seized ship??? . . . Let's face it: on Sunday, we only created more pirates.
This is quite funny--but alas, through no fault of Greenwald's, it is not as funny as this passage from a Washington Post story:
The killing of the three pirates by the U.S. military could worsen the problem, military officials said. Statements made Monday by people who identified themselves as pirates seemed to bolster that view.
This is funnier because it's presented as a serious news story. It's hard to believe anyone could write "statements made Monday by people who identified themselves as pirates" without humorous intent, but the deadpan delivery is simply brilliant. No parodist could improve on it. ***They should have been mentioned as "speaking anonymously since they are subject to summary execution at sea." Of course, in some quarters, the "root cause" of piracy, whatever it is ( pollution, global warming, etc. or prejudice against collectivists, democrats, distributionists, gays ), is sufficient to extenuate the practice, with practitioners no longer the common enemies of all.****
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