Lawyers are Not Funny

In my recent post on the Imus (remember him?) controversy, Everybody Hates Frank Rich, I expressed my concern that it is often difficult to arbitrate what is acceptable and what is inappropriate language.

And so it begins. The NYTimes, in Lawyer Attacked for Book His Panel Deems Offensive, describes an example:

Raoul Felder, a celebrity divorce lawyer who is chairman of a state commission that oversees judges, has been given a unanimous vote of no confidence by the other nine members of the commission for helping to write a book they said is racially and ethnically inflammatory.

In a statement issued Friday, the commission members said the book, which Mr. Felder and the comedian Jackie Mason wrote, “repeatedly invokes racial, ethnic and religious invective.”

Denying that their action had anything to do with the Imus furor (I guess being disingenuous isn't outside the realm of reasonable conduct), the Commission has condemned the book as offensive. Felder has disputed the characterization of the book and is standing firm, saying:

“Hey, guys, lighten up. This is a book I wrote with Jackie Mason, a comedian, and the cover of the book is a cartoon,” he said.

He added: “In Germany they burned the books they didn’t like, and then they burnt the people after the books. I don’t get it. A book is so threatening? I’m not going softly into the night.”

What's so bad about the book?

Mr. Felder and Mr. Mason, longtime friends, appear as cartoon superheroes on the cover of the book, which is titled “Schmucks! Our Favorite Fakes, Frauds, Lowlifes, Liars, the Armed and Dangerous, and Good Guys Gone Bad.”

They take shots at a number of public figures and ethnic groups. Barbra Streisand is dubbed “Mentl” and the speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, is “Botox-addicted.” Chapters in the book take on Tom Cruise and France and have titles like “Al Sharpton, Praise the Lard.”

The authors write that Mr. Sharpton, who has been one of Mr. Imus’s leading critics, could be the first president impeached before being elected.

They add, “Who thought it was a good idea to make Jesse Jackson the arbiter of racial healing? That makes as much sense as Ted Kennedy being a lifeguard at a girls’ school.”

Oy vey, you've got to be kidding! Now I may prefer the humor of a Jon Stewart to a Jackie Mason, but to suggest that his humor is hateful or bigoted is to say that we must eliminate comedy as an accepted form of art. And please, please, please, let's not do that!!

See also, Spitzer Asks Judicial Ethics Chairman to Resign and More Trouble for Felder. Somehow I don't see Felder conceding on this matter -- and I sure hope he doesn't.

A final note: The book, SCHMUCKS!, by Jackie Mason and Raoul Felder, is #18 on the NYTimes Nonfiction Best Seller List. I may have to buy it myself in a show of solidarity.

Tags: Law, Humor