Off-Color Remarks in Jokes
The problem with Colbert’s inclusion of an off-color remark in the joke he told last week is that now, instead of keeping the focus of attention on Trump’s reckless, baseless, unsubstantiated, totally unthoughtful, untruthful and outrageous claims about a former President that might highlight for the general public Trump’s incompetency as a leader, the focus of attention is now on Colbert’s controversial remark. The focus is no longer where it should be. For a political joke to be effective, you need to keep the focus of attention squarely directed on the target of the joke, not on yourself.
But, on the other hand, I don’t believe the FCC has much of a chicken leg to stand on if they want to consider fining Colbert given that the word Colbert used means something totally benign with the formal use of the word in the English language. If you look the word up in any Google search, the definition is: “a male bird, especially a rooster.” So, to the FCC chairman and his crusade to spend time and money to investigate something that would have been outright dismissed by any other sane, less vindictive administration, I only have one thing to say: “Cock-a-doodle-do.” Besides, the less time the FCC spends “investigating” something that doesn’t need to be investigated, the more time the FCC and congress can get back to destroying our internet protections and making your life on the internet less secure and more annoying.
The Polarity Resistance 