Two Jews can’t walk into a bar…

by Brian McKim & Traci Skene on April 26th, 2010

At least not in Afghanistan.

Once again, a political figure tries humor in a public appearance and fails miserably. We have always told the pols and the bureaucrats to leave the joking to the professionals. They never listen.

But it’s fun to dissect the gag!

The National Security Adviser, General James Jones, is in some hot water for telling a joke that some folks find offensive, in particular, anti-semitic. It’s an old joke. Jones prefaced his recent remarks to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy with “a story that I think is true.” First mistake… it’s a decades old joke. Intro-ing it as true is the sign of a rookie.

Second mistake: He takes way too long to tell it. Hesitation, expansion and unnecessary detail might indicate a lack of confidence in the joke… or a lack of confidence in the tellers ability to sell the joke. He took 2:03 to tell a joke that should have taken half that, if not less.

The joke, in its purest and simplest form, is this: A guy is wandering in the desert for a long time, out of food and water. He sees a shack on the horizon. He gets there and asks for water. The guy says, “I can sell you this tie.” The guy says, “A tie? What the hell is wrong with you?” The merchant says, “I’ll tell you what: There’s a restaurant over that hill. Got there, he’ll have all the water you need.” The guy disappears, then comes back a few hours later. The merchant says, what’s the matter? The guys says, “Your brother says I need a tie to get into the restaurant.”

Third mistake (and the one that gets him in trouble): In Jones’ telling, the joke involves a member of the Taliban and a merchant… which Jones identifies as “a Jewish merchant.” A cursory analysis of the joke reveals that there was no reason to bring the merchant’s ethnicity or religion into the joke. Of course, if you strip out the ethnic element, there’s no reason to tell that particular joke at a gathering of Near Eastern foreign policy wonks.

Fourth mistake (and this is our favorite): The joke is inaccurate. Google “the number of Jews in Afghanistan” and you get (among other citations), a Wikipedia page called “Jewish Population.” Scroll down and you can see a table. The table says that the total number of Jews in Afghanistan is…

One.

In the joke, both the merchant and the restaurant owner are Jews. So… since the number of Jews in Afghanistan is one, a joke set in Afghanistan involving two Jews is inaccurate.

You’d think a bunch of foreign policy eggheads would know this!

Thank you very much! We’ll be here all week! Try the halal meats!

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