Particular derision is reserved for the formal criticism of comedy, which seems to most sensible people like an unwitting bad joke, since nothing is funnier than solemnity about laughter.

Alas, I have not the talent – as would become all too apparent were I to try. So I don’t try.

On the whole, I think probably Ms. Waring shouldn’t either. But de gustibus.

Maybe if there is a difference in reactions to this sort of thing, the reason may be found in the fact that one group is capable of shame, and the other is not.

If you don’t think drinking puppy blood is a big deal, then you don’t much care when someone paints you with the puppy blood brush, even if you do not particularly care for puppy blood yourself.

exhibit 1: zel miller

It’s not the blood drinking itself that is wrong. A puppy is indeed a noble meal, and Bush’s call to dig in was justified, impure though his motives might have been. Even Wilson, Roosevelt and Truman were known to tipple a terrier, lap up a lab or slake their thirts with a fine young Nouveau Newfoundland from time to time. What red blooded American’s pulse does not quicken as a puppy-pulse slows?

No, it is for their inadequate preparation and blundering execution that the Republicans must be called to account! These were the wrong puppies, from the wrong pound at the wrong time. Yet now that the meal is underway, we need more bowls to collect the gushing vital fluid of these hounds. And if we are destined to gargle canine sangre, our American slurpers must be outfitted with the finest napkins available, the newest laser-sharpened knives, and protective goggles lest they be hit in the eyes with stinging droplets of the gushing red stuff.

If we fail to back this latest pooch picnic unreservedly and unequivocally, I fear the American public will never again trust us with the imprtant task of small mammal carnovory! Of course, of course … we were right to call for an end to that misguided slaughter of the gerbils in the 60’s. The preparers of that meal lied to the American public, hiding from them secret scientific findings that showed gerbil blood was as indigestible as it was unappetizing.

But puppies are an entirely different matter. America was indeed founded on the principle of the liberal pursuit of puppy hemoglobin, and we are presented with a unique, historical moment in which no rival can stand in our path as we round up and fatally dispatch our fill of tail-waggers.

That political victory in the tragic case of the gerbils was purchased with a double-edged sword, and our short-term win exacted a painful long-term price. While recognizing the rightness of our gastronomic recommendations, the public irrationally blamed us for their own indigestion. If we now let the lingering Small Critter Syndrome of the 60’s prevents us from taking a good healthy gulp at the present Fido-feast, we may very well be painted as puppy-lovers … or even vegetarians! … by our Republican opponets.

Even now, they are preparing their “Milk Bone in the back” defense, should we fail in our national effort to hold down the nutritious doggy nectar on offer.

Tell me, what is objectively wrong with good Republicans choosing to slake their unholy thirst with the warm life’s blood of the innocent? Given that it is an unpopular act, it must be not only amply warranted, but necessary. That they do it at all is therefore a service to America, and we should be grateful.

Next thing you know they’ll be offering them therapy.

…the point of which seemed to be that those on the other side would take understandable umbrage were someone on the left to post something targeting some small-to-nonexistent group of right wing extremists.

I disagree. I think the point of Belle’s post is the what we find in the Volokh post is a silly thing to post in the first place.

I simply can’t come up with any instances where reasonable right-wingers have taken this routine sort of thing as an attack on themselves

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.