re: #438 LeftyRambles2413 (HappyWarrior)

Fair but I hate it being a huge part of our modern political culture. It’s how Trump weasels out of criticism.

In real life, Chovanec is likely surrounded by brilliant but generally amoral investment advisers who joke like that all the time. It probably came as a shock to him that anyone would interpret his statement literally.

But that’s been true for a long time — for decades columnists have discovered to their shock that no matter how obvious they think their parody is, someone (and maybe most readers) will take their words as gospel truth.