On Satirist Apologies [by Paul Krassner]

On Satirist Apologies

http://www.counterpunch.org/krassner05112009.html

Jon Stewart and Truman, the War Criminal

By PAUL KRASSNER
May 11, 2009

In a recent blog on Huffington Post, Dennis Perrin criticized Jon
Stewart for apologizing the day after he agreed with a guest that
President Harry Truman was a war criminal. He wrote that "Stewart did
what well-regarded mainstream entertainers do when expressing an
unpopular opinion. He groveled for forgiveness….When an American
'satirist' apologizes for stating the truth, you can really
appreciate 'free expression' in a corporate-owned culture." Since
Perrin stated that, "before The Daily Show, Stewart was not known in
a Paul Krassner/Barry Crimmins/Whitney Brown way," I feel especially
compelled to disagree with his premise.

As a performer, I was a bundle of paradoxes. I was a hermit, yet I
would go out to do shows and talk to a hundred people at once. I was
a social critic, yet my spiritual path was trying not to judge
others. Irreverence was my only sacred cow, yet I tried not to let
victims become the target of my humor. So, there was one particular
routine that I stopped using in 1970, when abortion was still illegal
and I ran an underground referral service. It called for a "rape-in"
of legislators' wives in order to impregnate them so that they would
then convince their husbands to decriminalize abortion. But feminist
friends objected.

I resisted at first, because it was such a well-intentioned joke. But
I reconsidered. Even in a joke, why should women be assaulted because
men make the laws? Legislators' wives were the victims in that joke,
but the legislators themselves should have been the target. For me to
cease doing that bit of comedy wasn't self-censorship, it was
conscious evolution. I publicly apologized, in print and on the air.
Of course, if you think I was merely kowtowing to political
correctness, I hereby grovel for your forgiveness.

Perrin admitted that his take on The Daily Show was "a tad personal,"
because they had once rejected material he submitted because it was
"too dark." Actually, I had a similar experience with Dennis Miller.
He had called to invite me to submit material­several jokes and a
rant­when he hosted his own TV series. This was when he mistook
spouting obscure references for being hip, but before he became such
a political reactionary. He never let me know his decision. After a
few weeks, I wrote and asked him, but he didn't have the courtesy to
respond. I learned from a staff writer that Miller considered my
material "too radical." However, I did read it on the radio one
Sunday morning when Harry Shearer invited me to substitute for him on Le Show.

I also feel compelled to disagree with Jon Stewart. I think that
Harry Truman was indeed a war criminal. Actually, I believe that in
most wars, both sides harbor top-level war criminals, but that the
victor determines who they are. As Lenny Bruce said in 1962 at the
Gate of Horn in Chicago, "If we would have lost the war, they would
have strung Truman up by the balls…." Lenny was arrested for
obscenity that night. One of the items in the police report
complained: "When talking about the war he stated, 'If we would have
lost the war, they would have strung Truman up by the balls.'"
--

Paul Krassner edited Pot Stories For Soul, available at paulkrassner.com.

.