On his radio show today, Rush Limbaugh went on a long rant about how anything associated with President Obama ends up failing. He used newspapers and CNN as his primary examples, but then turned to some far more inflammatory (and completely inexplicable) examples.

“[E]verywhere Obama is spreading Obamaism, there is a deadly disease taking place, either in the TARP community or in the newspaper business,” he said. “Obama goes to Mexico — they have an earthquake. Obama goes to Mexico — get pig flu.”

You know, the biggest crime here is that that sentence above has all the elements of a good joke – a decent connection between things his audience knows about – and then the dismount sucks.

Dennis Miller – the Dennis Miller of old – would have tied these things up neatly in a bow, tossed in a literary reference, the word “Kabuki,” and possibly a “cha cha,” – and we’d all be peeing ourselves.

But Limbaugh mushed together three bad ideas like a Carrot Top prop.

If you’re going to take a shot at doing topical humor, I say go for it. But if you’re going to have the stones to do pandemic jokes in the middle of the pandemic, you gotta have THE joke. It’s gotta be the funniest joke ever.

It’s got to be so well worded that even the most sensitive person in the room catches themselves chuckling and then covers their mouth in embarrassment. Or fear of breathing in the virus. Or both.

“Do you like fishsticks?” “Do you like to put them in your mouth?”

It’s gotta be funnier than that.

But that being said, the above is just a poorly worded joke from a guy who has to fill three hours of radio time. Brevity is the soul of wit and this guy has to blabber a lot.

Look – not everything has to be an outrage. Some things can just be ignored. Look how little we talk about Sarah Palin now. With the flu and the economy and the right now flirting with a younger, blonder, prettier lady (and she has a sash!), Palin has been relegated to Wasilla where she will be… the hottest conservative in Wasilla.

Maybe. I don’t know Wasilla.

My point here? Anger should be reserved for the things that are worth getting angry about.

Laughter should be reserved for things that are funny.

But when a joke bombs, sometimes silence is the only response you need to give.

- Http://twitter.com/marmel

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