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By July 1994, "Politically Correct Bedtime Stories" had appeared for the third time on the "New York Times" bestseller list with sales exceeding 100,000 copies. One year later, there were almost 1.5 million copies of "Politically Correct Bedtime Stories" in print as it continued to excite public commentary. This popular book is an ideal case study for exploring the benefits and limits of satiric humor, the book's primary rhetorical strategy and the focus of this essay. We argue that because of its polyvalent nature, the use of ironic satire as a rhetorical strategy to debunk a position is unpredictable. In fact, as this essay demonstrates, some forms of humor may facilitate audience acceptance of the very ideas the satirist intends to disparage. In this case, Garner's use of satiric humor may have facilitated acceptance of moderate forms of political correctness. (Contains 55 notes.)

The article presents a speech by Martha Solomon Watson, Professor of Communication and Dean of the Hank Greenspun College of Urban Studies at the University of Nevada, delivered at the Seventh Biennial Public Address Conference held at Penn State University from October 13 to 15, 2000, in which she discussed rhetorical scholarship, Edwin Black's book "Rhetorical Criticism: A Study in Method," and the changes in public address discipline.

Just then they came in sight of thirty or forty windmills that rise from that plain. And no sooner did Don Quixote see them that he said to his squire, "Fortune is guiding our affairs better than we ourselves could have wished. Do you see over yonder, friend Sancho, thirty or forty hulking giants? I intend to do battle with them and slay than"... "What giants?" asked Sancho Panza. "Those you see over there," replied his master, "with their long arms. Some of them have arms well nigh two leagues in length." "Take care, sir," cried Sancho. "Those over there are not giants but windmills. Those things that seem to be their arms are sails which, when they are whirled around by the wind, turn the millstone." Cervantes, Part 1, Chapter VIII. Don Quixote [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]