Progressive, The: Sister act

By press time, I was unable to obtain a copy of the tape of Whoopi Goldberg at the Madison Square Garden Concert for Kerry in which she donned blackface with Ted Danson and did a schtick she wrote. No wait, that was 1993. At the Kerry fest, she carried a liquor bottle and did a twenty-minute riff on that double entendre gift bag of a word: "bush." Perhaps they were angry that it was too female. Better to talk about his Dick Cheney and his potty mouth.

The Foxes were characteristically outraged and demanded a tape of the event. There are double entendres and there are double standards, so I sent them my personal forty-three-hour tape from the Clinton years with footage of their own hysterical jokes about Bill and his Willy. It was returned.

As if they weren't at the Kerry event. Somebody was there with a camera, because the next Sunday, people who had laughed or chuckled mildly during Whoopi's set were not allowed to receive communion in their churches. Bill Cosby dissed her just on principle. Lesbians wearing "Good Bush, Bad Bush" T-shirts were sent to Guantanamo. Janet Jackson sent Whoopi a thank you note.

While I was waiting for my taped evidence to arrive, Linda Ronstadt was booed off the stage at the Aladdin in Las Vegas for dedicating her encore song "Desperado" to Michael Moore. The chips fell where they may. Also drinks and coasters. She was "escorted" out of the hotel, with her luggage flying out the door after her.

The Aladdin management said that they had cancelled Ronstadt's engagement because she was there to entertain guests, not to impose her political views. Somebody needs a nap.

Speaking of shoving things down peoples throats, after many customer complaints, the Slim-Fast people "shed," "trimmed," or "dropped" Whoopi as spokesperson for their product. Still no word if the cushion people will drop Whoopi, but who knew so many Republicans were on Slim-Fast? "I just want to lose ten pounds in case we have to cancel the elections." "That orange alert adds ten pounds." "Do these jackboots make me look fat?"

In solidarity with my sister comic, I tried to organize a protest to dump Slim-Fast into the Provincetown Harbor. My permit was denied by the harbormaster who said the goo was too environment toxic. Especially the strawberry flavor. In their support of Whoopi, the Democrats announced that the humor of the Whoopster did not reflect the opinions of the Kerry campaign. That's when I found that there are rules about dumping Democrats into the harbor.

In addition to bailing on Whoopi, the Kerry "support" has had a chilling trickle-down effect on other groups. Unity 2004, a coalition of ten LGBT groups, disinvited comedian Margaret Cho from entertaining at their convention bash near the aptly named FleetCenter. The DNC denied putting any pressure, but the Human Rights Campaign said they pulled Cho after they previewed her material and found it "brutal" on Bush.

It seems that UPS is not the only group wearing brown shirts these days. From Tom DeLay's chad thugs storming offices in Florida to the casino goons to the values hoods on Fox, Bush can be a lightweight because his heavies do his work. For the Democrat desperados, the beige of Kerry is the new brown. And the LGBT community can beat itself up just fine, thank you very much. Yellow is the new rainbow.

Kate (I loved seeing Barbara Ehrenreich in The New York Times) Clinton is a humorist.