On the moral understructure of late-night talk show humor

Tonight will provide a rare test case in American popular culture, as late-night talk show hosts, writers, and producers try to figure out if a subject that was, last night, deemed laugh-worthy by the American public– Dick Cheney accidentally lightly wounding a hunting pal– is still considered joke fodder a night later after the wound has become somewhat more serious.

My guess is that there will be another round of Cheney-has-a-gun jokes, because once you’ve started making jokes about a subject, it’s kind of awkward to stop.

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