Why aren't conservatives funny? An academic's doomed attempt to explain why there are no good right-wing comedians.

• Author: Green, Joshua
• Position: A Conservative Walks into a Bar: The Politics of Political Humor - Book review

A Conservative Walks Into a Bar: The Politics of Political Humor

by Alison Dagnes

Palgrave Macmillan, 255 pp.

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Alison Dagnes, a political scientist at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania, has a curious affliction: she thinks the comedian Dennis Miller is really, really funny. She wanted so badly to meet him and discuss his craft that she contrived to write an entire book on the subject of comedy and politics essentially as a professional excuse to fulfill this desire. Dagnes was working as a production assistant at C-SPAN in 1991 when she discovered Miller, who was then at the apex of his career, fresh off a successful run on Saturday Night Live and famous for his knowing, referential brand of humor. As she moved on to academe and he to HBO, Dagnes kept up what she calls her "steadfast devotion."

Miller styles his act as a stream-of-consciousness rant that is heavy on cultural allusions and was, back then, laced with an acid scorn toward the unenlightened--especially hicks, rednecks, culture warriors, and other right-wingers. Here's the flavor of Miller's comedy circa late 2000:

And on Monday, movers went to the governor's mansion in Austin, Texas, to transfer Bush's belongings to Washington. The move itself took very little time once workers discovered that Bush had nothing upstairs. Now, I don't want to get off on a rant here, but as a comedian, with George W. Bush coming into office, I feel like the owner of a hardware store before a hurricane. I hate to see it coming, but I have to admit it's good for business. Then something odd happened. The attacks of September 11, 2001, turned Miller into a fawning admirer of the same president he'd once held in contempt. The change was striking not only because Miller was supporting a Republican, but because he lost his sense of irony and adopted the full complement of Fox News--Republican vices: the chest-thumping America-first bravado, the angry paranoia, the presumption of treasonous bad faith in anyone who didn't share his views. This was especially jarring because the latter included most of Miller's fans, who didn't know what had happened to the guy. Dagnes, confused like the rest, watched her friends turn on Miller, and then watched the long arc of his career decline, from a failed stint hosting Monday Night Football, to a short-lived show on the financial network CNBC, and finally to his current role as comedian in residence at Fox News. Dagnes, who describes...