I’m not going to get in to a debate on whether it was funny. Obviously it wasn’t funny to you. I suspect it’s a bit more of an inside joke, a writer snapping a writer. Ms. Noonan’s schoolgirl gushiness is well-known and often ridiculed:

http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/rnc/9745/index.html

People who know Noonan’s writing and pay attention to her style and her word choice will likely get it. People who think of her only as a political writer talking issues won’t.

Oddly enough I suspct Ms. Noonan would find it funny. People who write for a living develop a style and within any style there are going to be satrizable elements. (For example, one could take a shot at George Will’s inability to get to any point until he had delivered an obscure historical or baseball anecdote.) Ms. Noonan’s quirk is that she writes with a quiver of desire in her voice. Most professional writers know their own quirks. They aren’t flaws they’re embarrassed to have pointed out, they’re essential elements of their particular style.

Will does pompous, Noonan does breathless, David Brooks is forever in search of the next catch-phrase, Krugman actually vibrates hatred through the page, and Maureen Dowd is so Maureen Dowd she actually satirizes herself twice a week. By the way, I exhibit a combination of low-bred scorn and badly-concealed arrogance, wordiness, and an addiction to momentum often at the cost of clarity. Eminently satirizable. God knows my fiction can be satirized — and has been. It’s part of what happens when you put yourself out there as a writer and take someone’s dollar for doing it.

Not so funny when I’m tweaking Peggy Noonan’s long-recognized infatutaion for George W. Bush.

Portraying her as a dog urinating on herself is quite a “tweak”. I hate to seem like a humorless stiff here, but was that another joke?

And was that a definition of satire, or a satire of a definition of satire? Are you now satirizing Noonan, Ann Coulter, me, or yourself?

Personally, when trying to judge those difficult border-line cases of whether or not something is funny, I follow the old National Lampoon definition:

1. Exploding toilets are funny.
2. Dead babies are not funny, unless they were killed by exploding toilets.

Add some exploding toilets in there, and we’ll all have a good laugh.

As for satire, it’s of course funny when it’s Limbaugh talking about Feminazis or Ann Coulter comparing liberals to various animal life forms. Not so funny when I’m tweaking Peggy Noonan’s long-recognized infatutaion for George W. Bush.

Don’t you see the absurdity? Or perhaps you don’t, given your political leanings.

Yes, I do see the absurdity, but absurdity is not satire. You obviously don’t see my point. Should I assume that this is because of your political leanings, Justin? That seems to be the standard explanation for everything around here.

And of course sideways could target Coulter or somebody else, but Noonan has certainly been very unquestioning on Bush’s WoT strategy. And the fact that every quote is crtiical is part of the satire.

In any event, I leave it up to sidways to defend his post for now on in.

Well, I think the point is a) satire and b) calling out the people who defended Bush’s tactics no matter what.

Then Peggy Noonan is entirely the wrong target, as she has criticized Bush for high spending and for so-called mission inebriation. And of course, every quote from Noonan in this post is critical of Bush.

You could find any number of people who deserve this more than Noonan does, unless you like picking on girls.

Point a) is wrong, too. Satire is making fun of some characteristic of the target by exaggerating it to absurdity. You could write a post in which you imagine that Glenn Reynolds is in love with Andrew Sullivan, or some such scenario, and it might be funny but it would hardly be “satire”.

In short, perhaps you don’t like it because it doesn’t square with your beliefs? Completely fine, but this is a centrist site after all. Not everything you read here is going to appeal to you.

However, I have seen Noonan’s dumps. They are enormous.

By the way Lonely Federalist, I saw your response to my comment on the post about Iraq and the troops. I left a new comment over there, so please take a look.

I was kind of curious about that too.