Senator charged with humor harassment

National Review, Feb 23, 1998 by Steve Sailer

Washington, D.C., Feb. 28, 2002--"Practically every evening in 1998, the senator would come into my office and close the door," tearfully recounts a former campaign worker. "He'd look me over, then ask, `What's green and skates?' I'd answer, `I don't know, Senator.' And he'd chortle, `Peggy Phlegm !'"

Washington has been rocked by the accusations of two dozen former employees that Sen. Edmund Noland (D., Alaska) made unwanted humor attempts. Although Congress exempted itself from the Humor Harassment Act of 2001, which expanded upon earlier legislation protecting employees against hostile work environments, the revelations may lead to the resignation of the man re-elected under the slogan "Serious Times Require a Serious Senator."

"It's not about humor, it's about power," explains humor harassment expert Dr. Malachi Bismarck, "the power to inflict your personality on helpless, cringing underlings."

A former aide reveals how hero-worship turned to horror. "I went to work for the senator because he opposes racism, child abuse, world hunger, nuclear winter, global warming, and the coming ice age." But slowly Noland's hidden side emerged. "He loved fake dog-doo and squirting boutonnieres. April 1 was an annual nightmare. And he'd start off his dialect jokes with the appropriate Scottish or French accent, then inevitably slide back to his all-purpose Irish brogue by the punchline. If he could remember the punchline. Countless times he told me about the dyslexic agnostic who lies awake at night wondering, `Is there a God?' Sure, sometimes he told good jokes. But who can remember the funny ones? It's the stinkers that haunt you to the grave."

Sen. Noland's chief of staff, Mardi Ames, defends her boss: "It's all because he outreached to the humor-resistant community years before the humorless won legal protection, back when other senators hired only the humorful. And it's not as if every joke was a dud. Like, there was the one about the three strings who walk into a bar and the first string says ... Hmmmhh ... Well, look, can I get back to you on this?"

A sense of betrayal is growing among Noland's supporters. Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Nina Linblad laments, "Repeatedly, we of the National Organization for the Grim (NOG) have championed some seemingly serious politician, only to be cruelly disillusioned. It must be society's fault."

Humorism activist Bismarck sums up, "We are not against humor. Everybody wants wanted humor, but nobody wants unwanted humor. It's that simple."

Just before press time, Sen. Noland announced that he was checking himself into a Humor Addiction Malady (HAM) clinic, "To learn if my alleged behavior stems from my history of childhood sports abuse. After fifty years of repression, I have only now recovered my buried memory of how my father made me play Little League. I hope my accusers can somehow find it in their hearts to forgive my dad."

Mr. Sailer (steveslr@aol.com) is a businessman and writer.