So Not Funny, George Lopez!

I get most of my feminist news from the mainstream feminist blogosphere, which likes to throw its trans news of the day in a little daily wrap-up, if at all. So I sincerely apologize for neglecting to get my feminist news from a place that's friendly to issues facing trans people. I will do better from now on. Being out of the loop in that regard is much worse than being out of the loop when it comes to Dancing with the Stars and Lopez Tonight. George Lopez is a guy that I never found funny. He probably doesn't think he's that funny either, since he tells transphobic jokes, the final resort in getting a cheap laugh. Last week, after the premiere of DWTS, he unleashed his fat hate and transmisogyny with this sorry excuse for a joke:

(At about 1:20) Finally my favorite male and female dancer of the season. Up first the male (he shows a clip of Wendy Williams' performance). It wasn't really her dancing that caught my attention, check this out. (he shows a clip of Wendy crying during dance practice). The last time she cried that hard was when she was on Maury and she heard Wendy Williams you are the father.

And then he called Kirstie Alley a pig, but he spared her her gender identity. George Lopez: A real revolutionary.

Alright, first of all, Wendy Williams is the bomb, okay? She's a Jersey girl, and she's really successful. She seems like a down-to-Earth woman, and she's one of three people I sort of pseudo-stalk when I hang out in Montclair (the other two are Stephen Colbert and baseball legend Yogi Berra). Most importantly, this "joke" doesn't hurt Wendy as much as it hurts trans women, particularly trans women of color, which make up about 100% of the trans people who are murdered each year. People have to learn that insulting someone by calling them trans isn't funny and leads to violence. It's a way of delegitimizing someone's being. And it needs to end like forever ago.

Not that you ever were funny to begin with. But, George Lopez, this is so not funny!

So Not Funny, Saturday Night Live!

I could stop with just that title and follow with a randomly selected clip, since Saturday Night Live hasn't been funny in about 15 years. But not only is this skit not funny, it's downright offensive. It's a mock commercial for hormone replacement therapy aimed at M to F transgender people. It shows several of the male cast members in varying stages of transition. The punch line is basically, "Get it? Trans women! Ha-ha!" I guess cissexist knuckle draggers find this hilarious, but mocking the experience of trans women is not a joke. Looks like NBC might have new ownership, but it has the same tired transphobic stereotypes that pretty much every other comedy has.

GLAAD has a petition that you can sign, demanding that NBC apologize for this disgusting sketch and remove it from future airings.

So Not Funny, Family Guy!

I never watch Family Guy, because I think it's stupid and unfunny. When I found out that Quagmire's dad was going to come out as transgender, I figured I'd boycott the episode. But I decided that I'd rather watch it and become offended. As a cis woman who will never have to endure the harassment, assault, murder, and everything in between that trans women suffer every day, it was the least I could do.

So after a handful of gay jokes, Quagmire's dad comes out as "a woman trapped in a man's body" and decides to have a sex change operation. When Quagmire goes to Peter and Lois for comfort, they can't seem to tell the difference between sexual orientation and gender identity. After some banter, Lois concludes that they should all agree that Quagmire's dad is "odd." While at the hospital with Quagmire, Peter calls Quagmire's dad "it" and a "he/she." After Quagmire's dad, now Ida, reveals the results of the operation, Peter gives her the thumbs-up. Trans women don't need cis men's approval to make sure that they're sufficiently womanly, even in a cartoon. Later, Ida is invited to dinner at the Griffin's where transmisogynist jokes and comments are hurled both at Ida and daughter Meg. After the dinner, Ida and Quagmire get into an argument, so Ida goes to a bar for some drinks. She meets the Griffins' dog, Brian, and they end up having sex. You know, because trans women are into beastiality. Brian tells the Griffins that he's met a wonderful woman, and everyone thinks it's hilarious when they find out Brian's love interest is Ida. Stewie is the last person Brian tells about his wonderful new lady friend, and Stewie tells Brian about Quagmire's dad. They have a good laugh about it, calling her an "it" several times, questioning the validity of trans women's relationships, and defining her private parts as "a train wreck." When Brian finds out that he had sex with Ida, Quagmire's father, he vomits for like 30 seconds.

This list of transmisogynist "jokes" is by no means exhaustive. That was just from memory. There were probably a lot more hateful jokes in there. But don't take my word for it! Watch the whole episode!

Pretty much every transmisogyinst stereotype was incorporated in this episode. Except for Ida becoming a prostitute. How did Seth MacFarlane miss that one? Now, many people will tell me, "It's Family Guy! What do you expect?" "They offend everyone eventually!" "It's called being edgy! Get a sense of humor!" If Family Guy was that edgy, they would have made a pro-trans episode. Hell, they didn't even use the words "trans," "transgender," or "trans woman" in the entire episode. Instead, they rolled out all the anti-trans woman stereotypes and put them in one episode. These jokes are offensive and contribute to the death of trans women. When someone calls a trans woman a "he/she" or an "it" or question the legitimacy of her body parts and romantic relationships, they are dehumanizing trans women, and that is tantamount to advocating for their demise.

Yeah, so not funny, Family Guy.

So Not Funny, Keith Olbermann!

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Keith Olbermann called his Worst Person in the World segment last night "unusual," and ended it with this:

All I have to say about Ann Coulter is this: If this guy wants to live his life as a woman, I'm gonna back his choice up 100 percent.

Calling Ann Coulter a man? Real unusual, Keith. And so not funny.

I know what you're thinking, because it wasn't long ago when my cis brain might have accepted this train of thought. "But Ann Coulter made a litany of gender-variant-phobic jokes in the column Keith quoted. She dissed cross-dressing! She dissed androgyny! She dissed butch lesbians! Why aren't you holding her accountable? Coulter is worse than Olbermann!" Maybe she is worse than he is, but not today. Or last night when Keith made that comment. I would really like the whole world to be above this, but I think the best hope the world has of becoming above this is if our progressive media figures become above this. Conservatives aren't going to call Coulter out on her trans hate. If anything, they might praise her for it. Progressives don't seem to be calling Olbermann out either. One woman on Twitter actually said it was the best part of her day. How's that for praise? But I still believe there are some people in the progressive movement that will tell him that his comments were offensive.

So that's why I e-mailed Keith Olbermann at Countdown@msnbc.com and told him that his comments were hurtful and possibly deadly. I mean, as long as mainstream media figures and the rest of the world are going to frame trans people as the outliers of humanity, then it doesn't make much of a difference if they were to die, right? (h/t @lilithvf1998). Making a joke about someone's gender identity does this extremely well. I think he needs to make himself tonight's Worst Person in the World. And never make a trans joke again.

So Not Funny, David Letterman!

This story is three days old, but transmisogyny is not, so I'm going to talk about this anyway. Late night talk show host David Letterman made a transphobic "joke" on his show the other night after telling his audience that President Obama appointed Amanda Simpson, a transgender woman, to be the Senior Technical Adviser to the Department of Commerce. Amanda Simpson is a super smart woman with three degrees, but that doesn't seem to matter because:

Letterman's announcer guy: What?! Amanda?! Amanda used to be a dude?! OH MY GOD!!!!! *runs away*

See, because it's funny that Letterman's announcer guy became disgusted at the thought of a trans person existing. Maybe he found Ms. Simpson attractive and now can't believe how stupid he was not to have seen what should have been so obvious. Now, I know Letterman didn't say the joke. He might not even have written the joke. But this is something that should have been canned before the taping of the show. So not funny, David Letterman!

So Not Funny, Dennis Miller!

I don't really have to put anything after that, because everyone knows that Dennis Miller is the shittiest comedian ever. But he did indeed make a sexist joke when he appeared on WWE RAW on Monday.

I am happy to be the host of the 2009 Slammy Awards. Very excited to be here. This is something I've always wanted to do. I cover politics on my radio show, and the similarities between politicians and the WWE are eerily similar. Now both have loud, obnoxious women with increasing power whose faces scare little children.

Then he showed a picture of some woman wrestler and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. What is it with conservative guys and making fun of powerful women's looks? Becoming Speaker of the House isn't the prize the Miss America winner gets, so nobody should give a shit what she looks like. And at least Speaker Pelosi has a face for C-SPAN. Miller has a face for radio, and material for the litter box that's so bad the crowd of homorepressed Texans couldn't even bring themselves to laugh at it. He couldn't even get a hoo-rah when he said "troops." Stick to what you're good at, Dennis: Jerking off on the toilet to the Washington Times op-eds.

So Not Funny, Russell Brand!

The big story about MTV's Video Music Awards Sunday night was the Kanye West/Taylor Swift affair. The event that isn't getting much play is Russel Brand's rape joke that he made against Megan Fox:

“She has admitted she is a little bit cuckoo upstairs and I have trained in psychiatry. So Megan, if you do have a little dizzy spell love, I could probably drop you a little pill. You can go and have a lie down in my dressing room. You might get some crazy dreams about being visited by a scarecrow, a perfumed weirdo leaning over you. But let me tell you, that’s a common side-effect. Megan, take your medicine.”

Rape isn't funny, and joking about it is even less funny. And if that's not bad enough, he made a joke about the rumors regarding Lady Gaga's sex. I couldn't find a direct quote of what he said first, but here's my rough summary of it. He said that the rumors about Lady Gaga's sex were sexist; people thought that because of her comfort with her strong sexual expression, she must really be a guy. Good on you, Russell Brand, for calling it how it is. Oh, wait, this is still Russell Brand we're talking about, so he had to say something disgusting.

“And if I pull her leotard to one side and find something a little extra there, I will just make it stiff and hang my hat on it.”

Ugh. Either put the rumors to bed, or don't discuss them at all. Don't send mixed messages about them. What does he expect the audience to think now? Even though Brand correctly stated that the rumors were sexist, he reignited them by saying they might be true. That damages Lady Gaga and the entire intersex population (and the thought to be intersex population).

Joking about rape and delicate sexuality issues -- so not funny, Russell Brand.

So Not Funny, Representative Jenkins!

Representative Lynn "Great White Hope" Jenkins (R-Kansas) laughed at a single mother at a town hall meeting about healthcare a few weeks ago. Here's how the conversation went:

Constituent: I’m a 27 year-old single mother. I work full-time. I do not have health insurance. My employer does not provide health insurance to me and I cannot afford it privately. So my question is, why shouldn’t my government guarantee all of its citizens health care?

Rep. Jenkins: Thank you. I’m sorry, maybe you missed my opening remarks, but absolutely. That’s why we have Medicaid in the current system and that’s why under the alternative proposal we have an option for low-to-modest-income people to be able to afford health care and then we’ve got the SCHIP program for children. So I think we’ve got all of the bases covered.

No, we don't. If this constituent and her child were eligible for Medicaid and SCHIP, they'd be on it. How patronizing of Representative Jenkins to dismiss this woman's concerns for her and her family's healthcare access. This is a reality for millions of Americans. Audience members informed Representative Jenkins that not everyone is covered under these programs, and the conversation continued.

Representative Jenkins: OK, if you’re not then you’re the perfect example for why we've got to have reform and why we've got to do it now but we have to do it right and if we can do an alternative proposal, as I’m suggesting, give you the money to go buy it in a reformed marketplace where it is affordable, that’s my preference rather than to saddle the nation with yet another government program when they can’t afford the government run programs we have.

Constituent: I want an option that I can pay for. I work. I pay my bills. I’m not a burden on the state. I pay my taxes. So why can’t I get an affordable option. Why are you against that?

Representative Jenkins: A government run program (laugh) is going to subsidize not only yours but (laughs) everyone's in this room. So I’m not sure what we’re talking about here.

But Representative Jenkins knows exactly what this constituent is talking about. As a member of Congress, she already gets healthcare that is subsidized by the American people! That's what we're all talking about, you idiot. Later, Representative Jenkins calls getting a government handout of thousands of dollars a year to buy health insurance in the private market "being a grown up." Did she not listen to this constituent at all? She isn't a "burden on the state," and she doesn't want to be. She wants to be a self-sufficient grown up and have affordable and reliable health insurance for her and her family. Put on your listening ears, stop laughing at hard-working women, and stop claiming ignorance, Representative Jenkins. It's so not funny!

So Not Funny, Conan O'Brien

The image above comes from an episode of The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien that aired last week. I was very offended by it, but didn't get a chance to write about it. Luckily, Renee at Womanist Musings did and found the offensive picture.

Basically, Conan O'Brien has this running gag called "Conan's Tabloid Moment" where he decides to stage a scandalous scene, take a picture of it, and sell it to the tabloids. At first, he pretends he's at a strip club. Then, he decides that the situation would be worse if he's drunk. What could possibly make that scene any worse? If the strippers were "trannies" of course! Because viewing cis women as sex objects isn't sickening, but if they're trans women . . . . And the way the cis women strippers become trans is by slapping a Keith Hernandez mustache on their faces. It's not that simple, Conan, and it's so not funny.

Conan has played around with gender on his show. A running joke of his is the fact that he looks a lot like Oscar-winning actress Tilda Swinton. A few years back, Conan enjoyed fame in Finland, and he attributed it to his resemblance to their president, Tarja Halonen. With both jokes, Conan made sure the joke was on him. He wasn't saying that Swinton and President Halonen looked like men, but that his red hair, pale complexion, and thin physique made him look like those women. He seems to be quite comfortable with his appearance, at least enough to talk about it and make fun of himself. But not everyone is as comfortable with the body they were born into. Trans people aren't afforded the privilege to feel comfortable in their own skin and be accepted as they are. That oppression shouldn't be exploited for cheap laughs.

Let's Get a Couple Things Straight

This is funny stuff.

This is so not funny stuff.

Now what would you file this under?

via Pandagon

So Not Funny, David Letterman

David Letterman made a really gross joke about baseball player Alex Rodriguez and Willow Palin, the teenage daughter of Gov. Sarah Palin, the other night on the Late Show. Momma and Willow went to a Yankee game together the other night, which is already vomit-inducing. Here's the joke:

One awkward moment with Sarah Palin at the Yankee game during the seventh inning, her daughter was knocked up by Alex Rodriguez.

Ew. Ew. The joke doesn't even really make much sense. This joke should be directed towards A-Rod and his brief fling with 50-year-old Madonna. So if the joke was about A-Rod and Sarah Palin hooking up, that might have been funny. But that's not how it went down. The joke implies that Alex Rodriguez, who's 33, impregnated a 14-year-old. That's just nasty.

EDIT: 200th post! What what!

So Not Funny, President Obama!

President Obama isn't a very good bowler. He's also not good at making jokes. Last night on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, the President made this tacky joke about his lack of bowling skills:

Leno: Now, are they going to put a basketball -- I imagine the bowling alley has been just burned and closed down.

Obama: No, no. I have been practicing all -- (laughter.)

Leno: Really? Really?

Obama: I bowled a 129. (Laughter and applause.)

Leno: No, that's very good. Yes. That's very good, Mr. President.

Obama: It's like -- it was like Special Olympics, or something. (Laughter.)

Leno: No, that's very good.

Obama: No, listen, I'm making progress on the bowling, yes.

Leave the jokes to Leno. Or maybe not, since he's not that funny either.

I'm pretty sure the conservative pundits are going to be all over this. And while they really have no right to criticize the President's comments, I'd still love to hear what Rush and Michael Savage have to say.

UPDATE: via Media Matters, here was Rush's reaction. Real rich!

So Not Funny, Sean Delonas!

I'm a day late on this, but better late than never, right?

The New York Post printed this cartoon a couple of days ago, opposite a picture of President Obama signing the stimulus bill. Gee, real subtle, Murdoch. 

This cartoon is totally racist and is part of the history of many totally racist political cartoons depicting African Americans as apes or monkeys. But I can hear you now asking this very important question:

How is that cartoon racist when this image isn't?

And there's many more where that came from. The answer is simple. First of all, such images comparing the former president with a chimpanzee is meant to insult Bush's intelligence. It's probably more insulting to chimps than it is to Bush. Poking fun at Bush's intelligence is fair game, as intelligence has something to do with running the country. Sean Delonas' recent political cartoon is racist because of it's historical context. The image of apes and monkeys has been used in political cartoons and other media to characterize African Americans and immigrant populations for centuries as not human, biologically inferior, and a lower form of life. 

The organization Color of Change is calling for a public apology and the firing of Sean Delonas, who has a long history of creating offensive political cartoons.

So Not Funny, George H.W. Bush!

Former President George H.W. Bush recently told this so not funny anecdote to some people somewhere:

One time we thought we'd outsmarted the crowd. We sent a decoy limosine off in one direction while I snuck out the back entrance. And we rounded the corner -- I'll never forget it -- and I saw one of the ugliest and angriest women I have ever seen in my entire life. Boy, she was really bad. And she charged my car with a sign... and came up right next to the window: "Stay out of my womb!" No problem, buddy.

Come on, Prez. Don't talk about Barbara that way.

Remember the Time GGOT Came to Marist College?

I'm so psyched that the Guerrilla Girls on Tour recently commented on my blog. *thumbs up* I thought this would be a good time to talk about when I got GGOT to perform "Feminists Are Funny" at my college. The story isn't as funny as it is horrifying. It was quite an ordeal, so they might remember it too. Here it goes.

I was basically appointed president of the Gender Equality Club during the last semester of my junior year at Marist College, since nobody else wanted the job (Marist isn't very feministy.). At the suggestion of a friend, my first order of business was to get GGOT to perform "Feminists Are Funny" at the beginning of the next fall semester. My VP (hey, Diana!) and I didn't think this was going to be a big deal. But we were way wrong. Getting GGOT to perform at Marist was going to cost $1500, which we didn't have. I think we were only able to get $500 for performances and the rest we had to get a co-sponsorship for. We thought the Student Programming Council would be cool and fund part of the project, since they basically have the college's money at their disposal. GGOT sent me a video and a press packet of all their promotional stuff and positive reviews, and I gave that to the Student Programming Council. They didn't like what they saw and denied to fund the rest of the project. Basically, we were screwed.  One of the GGOT, Aphra, suggested that we ask for the money from other departments. So Diana and I worked our butts off for a couple of months begging the different Liberal Arts departments to give us what little funding they had to help us out. Luckily, we got the rest of the funding from almost every Liberal Arts department. By the time we got the rest of the money,  it was September, so we only had a couple of weeks to promote the shit out of this thing. The week before the performance was a women's conference featuring Adrienne Rich (I totally vented to her about the whole GGOT planning fiasco, and she was very sympathetic. That was a rough week when it came to planning huge club events, come to think of it, but that's for another time), so Diana and I set up a table outside of the auditorium and told the other people who attended the conference about the show. The head of the Student Programming Council (Sarah something, I think. I'm glad I forgot) came up to us, picked up the flier we were handing out and said, "Where's Student Programming Council on this flier?" Turned out, the Student Programming Council decided to fund the performance in full, but they neglected to tell me about it. When I informed her that Liberal Arts gave us the rest of the money, she said it was all good and that the departments will just reimburse the Student Programming Council. So Student Programming Council wasn't funding the performance at all, and they basically robbed the poor Liberal Arts department for all they had. But they still wanted Gender Equality to give them props. *angry fist* Diana and I told GGOT all of this, and they were pissed. They almost bad-mouthed the Student Programming Council in the play, but I don't remember exactly why they changed their mind. They knew that the Student Programming Council didn't really want the show to go on, since Aphra and I e-mailed each other back and forth for a long time talking about it during the planning phase. But I don't think they knew that Student Programming Council was going to take all of Liberal Arts' money until after the performance. And the head of the Student Programming Council was pretending that she enjoyed GGOT during rehearsal. Something like that.

Anyway, the performance went on. A hundred people attended. With the help of our club advisor and some PR dude at Marist, an ad was released in the local paper (and this group of little old ladies we met after the show said they saw the ad in the paper and were so excited to come see the show. Aw!). A lot of Communications students were required to attend, as one of the Comm professors talks about GGOT in her classes. The performance was great, and I made an ass of myself on stage. It was a real fun time. The school paper wrote some nice things about the performance (I think I lost the article though). A few days later, I got a nice letter from GGOT:

Dear Emily, 

On behalf of Fanny Brice, Eva La Gallienne and myself, I would like to thank you again for all of the hard work you did getting Guerrilla Girls on Tour to Marist. You are indeed an incredible feminist and activist and your efforts on our behalf are recognized and appreciated. We enjoyed your audience and performing for your colleagues in the Gender Equality Club. 

Please keep in touch. You'd make a terrific member of the GGOT's so please let us know when you graduate!

Best,

Aphra Behn

Oops. I graduated in May 2006. And I haven't really kept in touch at all either. But that doesn't mean their performance hasn't really influenced me. I mean, what's the name of the blog? [A] Funny Feminist. And what am I? A funny feminist. Because feminists are funny. And who knows? Maybe in a couple years, I'll join GGOT as Amy Winehouse.

And if you're wondering, yes, Diana and I got to see Aphra, Fanny, and Eva without their masks. They were very nice not to kill us, weren't they?

So Not Funny, The Daily Show!

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Black Friday Deaths

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

The other day on The Daily Show, Jon Stewart made light of the three deaths that occurred on Black Friday. And while Jon Stewart says that the three deaths occurred because "they" (that is, the three people who died) were trying to save money on holiday gifts, one death was of a Wal-Mart employee who was trampled by shoppers, and the other two died in a shooting outside of a Toys "R" Us that might not have had anything to do with shopping. Because I don't expect accuracy to be a priority on The Daily Show, I'm more pissed about how flippant Jon Stewart was. They might as well not have talked about it at all. Turning the deaths of three people into a joke? So not funny.

So Not Funny, Ashley Todd!

McCain campaign volunteer, Ashley Todd,  lied to police about being attacked by a big Black man for being a McCain supporter. Ironic, isn't it? Sarah Palin doesn't even support hate crime statutes, and one of her supporters thought a fake bias crime would improve Palin's chances of becoming VP. Anyway, Todd told the cops that this scary Black man (isn't it always a Black guy?) carved a "B" into her face and told her that she would become an Obama supporter. But this wasn't just any "B" carved into her face.

It's a backwards "B!" The kind of "B" that would result if a person cut it into their own face without thinking, "Hey. You think this'll pass the Michelle Malkin smell test? Or will it be more stinky tofu?" Yep. They've got some real brainiacks on the Straight Talk Express. Racist, racist brainiacks. Oh, did I mention this happened in totally not racist western PA?

Being a lying racist -- so not funny.

John McCain is PROUD of His Supporters? So Not Funny!

Sen. John McCain told the country on Wednesday night's debate that he is proud of his supporters, right after Sen. Barack Obama talked about the McCain/Palin supporters that yelled things like "bomb Obama" and "kill him" at their rallies. So who else is McCain proud of?



McCain is proud of these people. McCain is proud of the woman who said, "I'm afraid if he wins, the Black will take over. He's not a Christian! This is a Christian nation! What is our country gonna end up like?" McCain is proud of the man who said, "When you got a Negro running for president, you need a first stringer. He's definitely a second stringer." McCain is proud of the man who said, "He's related to a known terrorist, for one." McCain is proud of the woman who said, "Just the whole Muslim thing and everything. I mean, everybody's talking about -- you know, a lot of people forgot about 9/11, but I don't know. It's just kind of a little unnerving." McCain is proud of the woman who said, "Obama and his wife, I'm concerned that they could be anti-White, that he might hide that." McCain is proud of the woman who said, "I don't the fact that he thinks us White people are trash, because we're not." Who else is McCain proud of?



McCain is proud of the people who created this image juxtaposing Osama bin Laden with Barack Obama. McCain is proud of people who want to torture Obama. McCain is proud of the Sacramento Republican Party. Who else is McCain proud of?



McCain is proud of the Chaffey Community Republican Woman Federated, who used this racist image for one of their newsletters.

Senator McCain, are you kidding me? You really are proud of these racist, xenophobic liars? So not funny!

There's a Campaign of Hate

File this under "so not funny." The racism and all-around hatred in McCain supporters is frightening, and McCain and Palin are doing nothing about it. In fact, they've started it in their campaign of fear-mongering, lies, and hatred. Watch the video, and sign this petition to stop the campaign of hate.

So Not Funny, John McCain

So John McCain and Barack Obama were at some Evangelical thing trying to win over a group of people who hate everyone who isn't exactly like them. Who needs their votes? More importantly, who wants their votes. But that's not what this post is about. This is a post about the "joke" John McCain made at that event that was so not funny.

Evangelical priest guy: On taxes, define "rich." Everybody talks about, you know, taxing the rich, but not the poor, the middle class. At what point, give me a number, give me a specific number. Where do you move from middle class to rich? Is it 100,000? 50,000? Is it 200 [thousand]? How does anyone know if we don't know what the standards are?

John McCain then goes over the typical Republican talking points, you know, that if everyone had more tax breaks we'd be able to by that really expensive health insurance that screws us over whenever we actually need that coverage (in so many words). Then he said this:

McCain: I think if you're just talking about income, how about 5 million?

Then the crowd and the Evangelical priest guy laughs. I mean, wouldn't Jesus laugh? Because in this time when people can't afford to buy back-to-school supplies for their children, we need to make jokes. But Barack Obama is an elitist, right? See, because I think the elitist is the one who makes a joke about something like this and then neglect to answer the question at all. Of course McCain can't answer this question. He doesn't know what middle class is. That's how out-of-touch he is with the 99% of Americans he's going to screw over if he becomes president.

But there is something funny about this. John McCain actually says that he knows that the "comment will be distorted." Well, people. You have the video right there. It's all in context. Who's laughing?