I must admit to some level of amusement at watching people scold The Onion over its Syria satires for "not being funny." Dave Weigel suggests that on this and other issues, they're resorting to easy, lazy humor that broadly backs up the liberal consensus because it generates clicks:
In the broader Onion context, though, it adds to the pile of super-obvious stories. Take "Supreme Court On Gay Marriage: 'Sure, Who Cares,' " an insanely popular story that's been shared nearly a quarter of a million times on Facebook. ... Where's the fun in sticking up for an incredibly popular opinion? Well, here's the fun: It's really shareable on Facebook! Even more shareable (400,000 attaboys so far) was this "commentary" from CNN, about why it fronted a Miley Cyrus story on its website after her VMA performance.
He goes on to compare The Onion to the New Yorker's in-house unfunny man Andy Borowitz, the blogging equivalent of dropping sarin nerve gas on a roomful of school children. I can't say I buy Dave's argument here, in large part because the Syria intervention isn't terribly popular with anyone, let alone liberals. These stories may be racking up clicks, but they aren't doing so because they're confirming people's beliefs.
No, the Syria satires are racking up clicks because they scar the conscience. It's easy to say in the abstract that the international community generally, and the United States specifically, has no responsibility to stop world leaders from using chemical weapons to kill women and children in civilian areas. It's much harder to do the same when confronted by the cold hard facts of inaction, even when the cold hard facts are utterly fictitious exaggerations.
I'm remarkably ambivalent about intervening in Syria, especially unilaterally. I'm shocked* that our worldly, peace prize-winning president couldn't pull together an international coalition to punish Assad for violating one of the few truly sacred norms the world has managed to cobble together. We'd be in much better shape if there was some semblance of support for a strike. And, frankly, I'd be happy to let the rest of the world pick up the slack here: We're stretched kind of thin.
But even assuming there was support for this action at home and abroad, I'm unsure what it would accomplish. The only concrete action I'd want to undertake is the killing of Assad and his whole bloodline.** Even then, though, what's next? Who fills the vacuum? Who takes charge of the chemical weapons stockpile? Who do we trust? It's a giant cluster.
Cluster or no, though, there are real costs for inaction. They're being borne by people who have no voice in America. The Onion is highlighting those costs and giving them a voice.
Is The Onion making you uncomfortable when it points out the costs of inaction? Good. You should feel uncomfortable.
The whole world should feel uncomfortable.
*lol jk
**Bret Stephens is a squish. Put me in charge and I'll wipe his seed from the Earth. It's important to teach people that there are consequences for using chemical weapons.