Gerson can’t see that Franken’s Orwellian too — but in a good way

As a speechwriter for George W. Bush, Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson may or may not have penned the Orwellian line "Axis of Evil." But he did write a recent op-ed using by-now well-worn quotes to try to demonstrate that Al Franken’s satirical writings aren’t in George Orwell’s league. What Gerson really shows is he’s out of his depth.

In the op-ed, reprinted in today’s Star Tribune, Gerson weighs in on the "nationally important Senate race in Minnesota" by attempting a critique of Franken’s work as a satirist. "This is not prudery," Gerson huffs after some strenuous cherry-picking of the juiciest bits from Franken’s career, by now well picked over for Republican talking points.

Gerson’s point is that Franken’s past writings are too vulgar for a Senate candidate or even for a satirist in the tradition of Jonathan Swift and George Orwell. That’s sure to crack up anyone who’s ever cracked an unexpurgated copy of Swift’s "Gulliver’s Travels." As for Orwell, Gerson’s blinkered idea of satire has apparently not allowed him to become familiar with Orwell’s best-known work, "1984." Here’s Gerson on Franken:

Franken’s defenders explain that his edginess is the result of being a "satirist"—a term he embraces. …So what is Franken’s "provocative, touching and funny" contribution to the genre? Consider his article in Playboy magazine titled "Porn-O-Rama!" in which he enthuses that it is an "exciting time for pornographers and for us, the consumers of pornography." The Internet, he explains, is a "terrific learning tool. For example, a couple of years ago, when he was 12, my son used the Internet for a sixth-grade report on bestiality. Joe was able to download some effective visual aids, which the other students in his class just loved." Franken goes on to relate a soft-core fantasy about women providing him with sex who were trained at the "Minnesota Institute of Titology."

Orwell would be so proud.

Does Gerson deem the porn industry not a worthy subject of satire? Or does he not recognize when it is being satirized? Either way, a passage from Orwell’s "1984" shows that the kicker Gerson delivers with such sarcasm actually rings true.

From "1984," here’s Orwell:

She had been a troop-leader in the Spies and a branch secretary in the Youth League before joining the Junior Anti-Sex League. She had always borne an excellent character. She had even (an infallible mark of good reputation) been picked out to work in Pornosec, the sub-section of the Fiction Department which turned out cheap pornography for distribution among the proles. It was nicknamed Muck House by the people who worked in it, she remarked. There she had remained for a year, helping to produce booklets in sealed packets with titles like Spanking Stories or One Night in a Girls’ School, to be bought furtively by proletarian youths who were under the impression that they were buying something illegal.

‘What are these books like?’ said Winston curiously.

‘Oh, ghastly rubbish. They’re boring, really. They only have six plots, but they swap them round a bit. Of course I was only on the kaleidoscopes. I was never in the Rewrite Squad. I’m not literary, dear—not even enough for that.’

He learned with astonishment that all the workers in Pornosec, except the heads of the departments, were girls. The theory was that men, whose sex instincts were less controllable than those of women, were in greater danger of being corrupted by the filth they handled.

‘They don’t even like having married women there,’ she added. ‘Girls are always supposed to be so pure. Here’s one who isn’t, anyway.’