9/11 jokes are tasteless

[proud2BlibKansan]

We have been the cowards lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away. That’s cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building, say what you want about it, it’s not cowardly. - Bill Maher

"If I'm going to say anything about John Edwards in the future, I'll just wish he had been killed in a terrorist assassination plot." - Ann Coulter

"My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building." - Ann Coulter

Q: What's the biggest difference between 9/11 and the Oklahoma City Bombing?
A: Foreigners once again prove they can do it better and more efficiently.

"This kind of seems like bad taste to me. A Giuliani fundraiser is now charging $9.11 in reference to 9/11. ... Isn't that inappropriate? I mean, isn't it like a Bill Clinton fundraiser charging $69 a head?"
--Jay Leno

"Iran's president ... wanted to lay a wreath at Ground Zero, but his critics said, 'No, no. You are trying to exploit Ground Zero for political gain, and that is Rudy Giuliani's job.'" --Bill Maher

"It's a bird!"
"It's a plane!"
"It's.... Oh shit, it IS a plane!"

"You know if I had nickel for every time Bush has mentioned 9/11, I could raise enough reward money to go after Bin Laden." --Jon Stewart

You can always tell when Bush is in trouble. He always brings out 9/11. 9/11 is the cudgel that he waves. As far as he's concerned, it's "Open Sesame". 9/11 is his way of saying, "Okay, I'm f**king up now, but remember four years ago? That was cool." I think he thinks he can use it for anything. "9/11. On 9/11 we were attacked. And so, I should get to bang your wife." What? "Now, there are some nay-sayers out there who think I shouldn't bang your wife, well, that's the cut-and-run crowd." -- Jon Stewart

http://voices.kansascity.com/node/4556#comment-23797

[stray cat]

1. From the left or the right - I'm not crazy about jokes about murderers or rapists

or child molesters. So - I don't think columbine jokes are real funny or most 9-11 jokes.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

2. Remember Biden's best campaign line?

About Rudy Guiliani?

"Everything he says is 'Noun, verb, 9/11.'"

Brilliant.

All humor is - if it's good - bad taste. That's what makes it humor and NOT serious discussion.................

[NC_Nurse]

3. I think those jokes are about the people who exploit 9/11 for their own gain.

Not about the event itself. That is funny, IMO. And a sad commentary too.

[blonndee]

4. Um, hmm.

Sykes was "joking" about people who really DO wish America harm (and thus should be called out in a harsh way), and Stewart and Maher's jokes were clearly calling out people who used 9/11 for their own purposes. Were you being sarcastic, by chance? Must have been.

[lob1]

Laughter will cure the wound. Oh wait, that's the republican health plan.

[proud2BlibKansan]

12. LOL!

Good one.

[lob1]

5. dupe

[John Q. Citizen]

6. That's why there are no Jonestown jokes...

The punchline is too long.

[JonLP24]

11. I've heard 'don't drink the kool-aid' countless times

On this site and everywhere. I'm not exactly sure where 'don't drink the kool-aid' comes from but I'm guessing it's Jonestown. I could be 100% wrong.

[TahitiNut]

15. !

:banghead:

[EFerrari]

23. When the church next door wailed and shouted too long on Sundays,

Doug used to open the window and yell, "Oh, just drink the kool aid already!"

[riverdeep]

7. Is this wrong of me for laughing at some of these?

These three jokes are funny to me:

Q: What's the biggest difference between 9/11 and the Oklahoma City Bombing?
A: Foreigners once again prove they can do it better and more efficiently.

"This kind of seems like bad taste to me. A Giuliani fundraiser is now charging $9.11 in reference to 9/11. ... Isn't that inappropriate? I mean, isn't it like a Bill Clinton fundraiser charging $69 a head?"
--Jay Leno

"It's a bird!"
"It's a plane!"
"It's.... Oh shit, it IS a plane!"



I guess I'm just a bastard.

[The Doctor.]

8. Sorry, but there is a difference between Coulter's and Maher's angles...

Maher at least has a decent point to make, as does Stewart and Leno.

Bashing someone for using 9/11 to further themselves is not 'making a joke' of the attacks.

By lumping them all together, you seemed to have failed to make a certain important distinction here.

[nevergiveup]

9. I think Rush is a scumbag

but I didn't find anything funny about wishing him kidney failure even in the context in which it was used. I thought the 9/11 joke was funny because I was focusing on the humor regarding the hypocrisy of his drug addiction. To each his own.

[proud2BlibKansan]

13. And I think the outrage over the joke is more humorous than the joke

Or should I say poutrage?

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

10. Bush crawling on the floor of his office looking for WMDs

I recall that the sycophants at that dinner thought it was hilarious...

[proud2BlibKansan]

14. That's the grand prize winner in the tasteless joke Olympics.

IMO

[MadMaddie]

16. The difference between Sykes and the rest that you noted

The media didn't seem to be outraged at the Repugs....they didn't think it was over the line.....in fact they accepted it without a peep.

To tell you the truth they are not mad about the jokes themselves....they are mad about who the jokes were about - "How dare this black women attack their leader", that's what this is about.

[JonLP24]

17. If anyone was worried about Wanda Sykes going to far

They shouldn't of invited her. If anyone seen the Chris Rock Show she goes even further that what you seen. This is nothing comared to her days at the Chris Rock Show. Besides I seen Barack Obama smile when she said 'I hope his kidneys fail'

Also Ann Coulter makes the jokes even worse, I don't even think they're jokes. I think she is serious as she is serious about alot of unacceptable things.

Also Bill Maher was more on the truth side then the joke side in the first paragraph.

[msongs]

18. Dear Bill Maher - killing 2900+ innocent people is COWARDLY, you moron nt

[riverdeep]

20. See, I wouldn't say that. I'd say it's ridiculously evil.

I think that's the point that he was trying to make, that bravery is a tool, and it can be used for good OR evil.

[JonLP24]

21. Maybe I'm the only understand what Bill Maher said

But you got this task to carry out this attack, anytime you decide not to follow thru it's usually because you're chicken. It takes guts to hijack a plane and kill yourself among others.

I've been suicidal before, I was always too cowardly to follow thru. I'm not condoning the attack but I know what Maher is talking about.

[armyowalgreens]

22. No it's not cowardly.

This is why I've never really understood the label of "terrorist" being applied to Muslim extremists.

Their goal is not to terrorize. They are participating in a jihad. A holy war. To them, it is nothing more than a destruction of the enemy. There's nothing cowardly about it if you truly believe in your cause.

That's not justifying their acts. It's simply putting everything into perspective.

Bush and his administration were terrorists. Their goal was to exploit fear for political and economic gains. That is true terrorism.

[armyowalgreens]

26. Clarification:

I consider the US bombings of Japan with nuclear weapons infinitely more cowardly than the 9/11 terrorist attack.

The US had other options that were considered viable and good. Instead we killed hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians in the blink of an eye. It makes me sick.

[stillcool]

29. I think it's called retribution..

or maybe it's 'cowardly' when people suicide themselves because they don't have an air-force to do it?

[Jester Messiah]

34. By what definition of cowardice?

Wiktionary: "Cowardice" can be difficult to define outside of specific social contexts. In general terms, it is the perceived failure to demonstrate sufficient bravery in the face of an adverse situation. Cowards are usually seen to have avoided or refused to engage in a confrontation or struggle which has been deemed good or righteous by the wider culture in which they live.

Hijacking a plane and sacrificing your life, dealing a culture-altering blow to the most powerful nation on earth is cowardice? I mean, it's asymmetric warfare, they bypassed the military to strike targets that would normally be protected by it, but if that's what you call cowardice, then I'm not sure what you think of the whole discipline of strategy/tactics, since those are designed to bypass enemy strength and hit where it does the most damage. Sorry to ramble, but I think my point is clear. Evil it certainly was, but cowardice? Nope. Cowardice was the Republican response of "OMG! Here are my rights, now save me!"

[Joe Fields]

19. Opinions vary...

I don't feel the least bit bad about laughing at the Rush joke.

[mdmc]

24. I disagree

During the "path to 9-11" abc thing, I saw an editorial cartoon. two people watching tv - man says to wife, "I think abc too some creative liberites with this 'path to 9-11 thing' show".

On the tv you could see a plane flying toward the twin towers. A chubby Bill Clinton was in the cockpit, given the thumbs up thing.

[ecstatic]

25. People understand that when Maher says it, it's a joke

Yet people right here on DU can't seem to give Sykes that same leeway. It's a JOKE dammit. She doesn't think Rush was a hijacker and she doesn't really hope that his kidneys fail.

[Fumesucker]

35. Maher wasn't joking..

And I agree with him, you can say a lot of things about the 911 terrorists but they were willing to sacrifice their lives for what they believed.

Which is why they are so scary to so many of us, because there are so many of us who would not sacrifice even their standard of living for their beliefs.

[Gregorian]

27. Offensive jokes, bad jokes, are still jokes.

Torture is real. It's not a joke. I can tell the difference between the two.

To me, clinging to 9/11, and making it sacred, while missing excluding other just as crucially important things, is far far more offensive than tough jokes.

It had to be done. And I say that it will do far more good than it may at first seem. Look, people are all talking about it. And that means they're talking about Rush. He needs the bad coverage.

[Kali]

28. I thought all of those except the first coulter joke were on the funny side.

Dark humor is fine by me.

[REP]

30. The first three aren't jokes

The first one is an opinion. Agree or disagree, but it wasn't intended to be funny. Just because Bill Maher is a comedian doesn't mean everything he says is intended to be a joke.

The two Coulter quotes weren't intended as jokes, either. Again, they are opinions - the ill-informed opinions of a chardonnay-soaked harpy. Just because she's a joke doesn't mean everything she says was meant to be one, too.

The rest are hilarious.

HTH. HAND.

[Smith_3]

32. Yup. The first three are not jokes.

[ZombieHorde]

31. I agree they are tasteless, but is tasteless bad?

Why should we avoid tasteless humor?

[Jester Messiah]

33. If we can laugh about it, it will mean that we are healing.

I was enraged after 9/11. Now that I can laugh about it, I don't have to bear that burden of rage. I'd rather be able to grin, even if ruefully, than make it into some kind of sacred cow. As a sacred cow it's a Republican cudgel, and I think we've all had enough of that.

[quickesst]

36. 9/11 is a topic...

...that should be avoided in a comedic sense. When Sykes or her joke writers came up with her routine, how could they not take a second look at that particular joke, and say, "Uh, no, I think there are a lot of subjects you can slam the dog shit out of the repukes with, but simple logic dictates that this is not one of them. Too much assumption around here that people, Democrats in particular are as informed as members of DU. They're not. They get their info and perceptions from the msm. Besides, most of the examples in the op are not jokes. They are disgusting statements aimed at bringing down the left, and they were not meant to be humorous. In the end, why would anyone justify what they do by citing examples of the opposition doing the same? Olberman was right. Thanks.
quickesst