We have been having fun at Anthony Weiner’s expense like just about everyone else. Fun is, of course, valuable in itself. But Glenn Reynolds reminds us that mockery serves a deeper purpose:
I think there’s an important point in the comic value: The people who think they’re smart enough, and morally superior enough, to run everyone else’s lives are risible. They’re not smart enough to run their own lives competently, and they’re actually, overall, morally inferior — I mean, John Edwards, DSK, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Barney Frank, Tax Cheat Tim Geithner, just go down the list — and mocking them is inherently valuable. They pursue power, and they exercise power, as much for deference as anything else. Deny them that, and make it painful for them whenever possible. That’s my take.
The day when hundreds of millions of Americans are simultaneously laughing at liberals will be the day when liberalism dies.
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