Entertaining what troops?

On the front page of Saturday's New York Times, Andrea Elliott offers "For Recuriter Speaking Arabic, Saying 'Go Army' Is a Hard Job" told an interesting story of how difficult it was for Arabic-Americans serving in the military to recruit. But we found one section even more interesting.

We'll zoom in on one aspect of the article:

He [Sergeant Cameron Murad] remembers a day in 2002 when comedian Drew Carey visited a base in Saudi Arabia where he was working. During a skit, Sergeant Murad recalled, Mr. Carey dropped to the ground to mimic the Muslim prayer. As the troops roared with laughter, Sergeant Murad walked out."I thought about my mom when she prays, how humble she is," he said.

Carey's skit was offensive. So was the nonsense Al Franken paraded. It's not mentioned in the article because Franken just made 'funnies' about leering at women and using them as sex objects. (Not at all different from the T&A parade that had Gordo's war-on dripping awhile back.)

If people want to entertain 'the troops' (whether they're pro-Bush -- Carey -- or in disagreement with him -- Franken), they need to grow up and grasp that 'the troops' are not all White, Christian males.

America is a diverse country and this nonsense that you can go out and feel good about yourself ("Look how wonderful I am!") while insulting many troops needs to stop.

When Franken bumbles around and makes passes at whatever woman was idiot enough to go on tour with him, it doesn't just disgrace him and the woman, it makes the climate that a Suzanne Swift has to serve in all the rougher.

It's "funny," it's "silly," it's just "the way it is."

No, it's not.

And if 'entertainers' can't grasp that their job to 'entertain' the troops doesn't include insulting people they are supposedly entertaining, then it's past time the military and/or the USO stepped in.

This nonsense that you're there for morale (as opposed to your own ego stroking) is revealed as crap when your 'entertainment' makes it that much more difficult for those who bothered to turn out.

This isn't political speech. Franken doesn't advocate for a withdrawal on radio, let alone in front of the troops. If the military wants to bring in political performers, great. But these are cut ups, meant to amuse. Meant to distract the troops from the hardships and to help them come together over a shared laugh. Kind of hard to do that when some are left out in the cold with 'humor' that divides and sections off.

If you're there to 'cut up,' your humor should be geared to all serving.

If someone had paid to see Carey or Franken in a comedy club, they'd get what they deserved (which wouldn't mean they didn't have a right to object after). But supposedly, these are 'good will' efforts to 'entertain' the troops. When your efforts divide the troops you're supposedly trying to 'entertain,' someone needs to step in. The military, which prides team 'cohesion' and team think above all else, should have stepped in a long time ago.

It's really easy to scream "P.C.!" and ignore the issue (and many have), but this isn't an issue where someone went to a club and got insulted. This is an issue where supposedly 'good will' is the intent of the entertainers, raising morale. You don't do that by insulting Muslims who serve or by making women feel that they've just been degraded (and a number of women serving who saw Franken's lame 'entertainment' felt degraded).

We fully grasp that, in comedy, you're bound to offend someone in some manner. That's a given. And there are degrees of what is acceptable and what's not.

But entertaining the troops means making them all feel (regardless of faith, gender, what have you) that they're invited to laugh. Carey's mocking Muslim religions ins't just a bad joke, it's stupid and it's hurtful to Muslims who are serving in the United States military. Carey's remarks came in 2002 and, hopefully, he wouldn't do the same thing today.

Franken's got no excuse. The T&A parade was critiqued when he was a college student. He has no reason to be unaware of it. And he has no excuse for taking part in it. Demeaning women not only hurts the women who serve, it hurts all the women. As the case of Abeer demonstrates, not everyone serving is playing with a full deck or by what most think of as the agreed upon societal norms. What happened to Suzanne Swift demonstrates that it's not just the "other" who gets seen as a target for all your sexual hang ups, frustrations and impulses. The last thing the military needs to do is present tease shows at a time when women are being sexually harrassed and raped in Iraq. There should be zero tolerance for this.

Franken offering up that he was playing Saddam as a buffoon doesn't cut it as a valid excuse. There is no excuse. It's always interesting to see what sort of men need to use women's bodies as props to be a "hit." It's a real shame that Franken doesn't think he can get laughs without resorting to objectifying women but his personal insecurities shouldn't mean that women serving (or women in Iraq) have to suffer because his "jokes" have sent the message that women are there to excite you and well, hey, men have urges.

There's too much at stake for that nonsense. It's offensive to women serving. Franken doesn't even attempt to be an equal opportunity offender. There's no eye candy for the women. (If he thinks he's it, he has even more personal problems than one might suspect.)

Women serving in Iraq have had to put up with photos of nude women being displayed in front of them, shoved off on them and more. There's not a workplace in America that could get away with that nonsense. The T&A parade, the objectifying women, is one more layer that allows and encourages inappropriate behaviors (and crimes) to occur.

Anyone who goes to a club performance of Carey or Franklin's gets what they deserve but when they, or anyone else, signs up to spread 'goodwill' to the troops, they need to take a hard look at their act, a hard look at the makeup of today's military and figure out exactly how their jokes will spread 'good will.' If the jokes don't, even if it gets a belly laugh from a majority, it's not worth including. If you're truly there to raise morale, you don't do 'jokes' that leave those serving insulted.