In a just world, Emily Cochran would get Lileks-like props in the blogosphere. For those of you not familiar with her, Emily’s blog is hosted over at the America’s Future Foundation website, opposite Gene Healy.

While Gene aptly plays the role of the slightly curmudgeonly but insightful and provocative libertarian, I’m afraid he’s terribly overshadowed by Cochran’s ingenious satire.

Cochran for weeks now has been playing the role of the dim-witted country-club conservative. We all know the type — the ditzy gal who dips her ankles deep enough into the political pool to know all the White House talking points, but not quite deep enough to do any actual thinking of her own.

Cochran, whom I suspect is a libertarian beneath the satire, plays the role like Olivier.

Oh sure, she occasionally goes over the top — I can’t imagine any of the Republican women she’s mimicking ever actually suggesting that Hillary Clinton’s refusal to badmouth herself in her own biography is akin to Chinese censorship, for example. And even the most gushing lady Capitol Hill Clubber would probably stop short of the creepy, Electra-complex labeling of “strong, cocky” Republicans as “the Daddy party.”

But the best satirists know that it’s necessary to occasonally throw out hints, tipping off the dim-witted to the fact that yes, what you’re reading really is satire. When Cochran’s posts get particularly incredulous, I suspect it’s merely her way of winking at us, the readers, to let us in on the fix.

I’ve been reading Emily for a few weeks now, and can safely conclude that she’s nothing short of brilliant. She’s able to climb into the mind of your typical Ann Coulter groupie like no one I’ve ever read. Her blog is a kind of satirical intellectual gumbo, well-stocked with meaty fish, though all of them harvested from shallow waters. As thorough a dismantling of conservative thinking as you’ll find.

Welcome to the blogroll, Emily!

Under “humor,” of course.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 13th, 2003 at 12:21 pm by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.