Lenny Bruce pardon combats terrorism
No Joke! 37 Years After Death Lenny Bruce Receives Pardon (NY Times) highlights two completely inadvertent examples of high comedy. Apparently, George Pataki has pardoned Lenny Bruce of his obscenity charge 37 years after his death. Unfortunately, that’s a little late to prevent the US government from having hounded a man to his death for having an unsanctioned sense of humor.
For those bits of high comedy, you have to read his announcement:
“Freedom of speech is one of the greatest American liberties, and I hope this pardon serves as a reminder of the precious freedoms we are fighting to preserve as we continue to wage the war on terror.”
Yes, that’s right. Bruce wasn’t pardoned because our government actually believes that he had a right to do what he did, but because his conviction on obscenity charges were uncomfortably too similar to charges an Islamic government might level against its own people. So the charge was repealed 37 years after his death as a remarkably bold show of First-Amendment support by our incredibly principled government in order to distance our great land from the Muslimoid hordes on the other side of the world.
Can someone please write a single, fucking article that doesn’t use the word “terror” in it?
In a show of dry wit almost previously unknown to the old gray lady, the Times noted:
“Being dead, Mr. Bruce is not expected to reap any immediate benefit from the pardon.”
All the other pundits and sources have a predictably exhuberant take on Republican Pataki’s pardon, making the most of it as a single step that forgive all of the other rights that have slid away recently:
“There is only one reason for Governor Pataki to do this: for the principle of the thing. … Indeed, Governor Pataki’s decision to pardon a symbol of the left came during a year in which he took many actions to shore up his Republican and conservative credentials, including supporting the Bush administration’s antiterrorism efforts, like the Patriot Act, which some civil libertarians see as a threat to the Bill of Rights.”
Indeed, Pataki is a shining beacon in a world of darkness: he supported all of the other anti-First Amendment measures, but his pardoning of a man 37 years dead, who was convicted under unconstitutional laws, is more than enough for the NY Times to paint him as a champion of freedom of speech.
Not to be too much of a bitch about it (as if!), but note that at the end of the previous quote, they make sure to let you know that only those crazy-ass ‘civil libertarians’ have any problems with the Patriot Act — never mind that the literal translation of ‘civil liberatarian’ is actually anyone who thinks that people should be able to do more or less what they want, as long as they don’t harm anyone else. This is a rather larger group of people than that suggested by the name, no?
They even dug up his daughter to dole out some fat quotes that would probably kill Lenny all over again:
“Isn’t this wonderful? Isn’t this a great day in America? … This is what America is all about.”
Yes indeed, Ma’am, that is what America is all about. Take a harmless comic with views differing from those of the ruling elite, hound him and convict him of a crime under harsh, Puritanical law, keep hammering on his fragile psyche for years until his will-to-live crumbles and he succumbs to drugs. Then, pardon him 37 years later for political advantage. I’ve got a warm feeling all over. I’m sure Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin are smiling down on this fair land today.