Mean Janeane

I had the displeasure of reading "What puts the ROFL into Janeane Garofalo and Her Liberal Lefto-Pink Comedy" interview in the August edition of The Word (an otherwise superb
Brit music and entertainment rag.) A few things jumped out at me. The interview was example no. 478 of why I couldn't care less what celebrities have to say about the world. It was also one of thousands examples out there of how supposedly "compassionate, open-minded" lefties often show themselves to be nothing more than hateful, angry, spiteful, bitter people who would silence anyone opposing their world view.

I used to like Ms. Garofalo back in her The Ben Stiller Show days. Today, though, I really have no use for her. She's just another pissed off Hollywood type. She's supposedly smart, but she misses the irony of the bread and butter of her stand-up routine: trashing conservatives. Her reaction to the so-called "tea party protests" staged across the US a few months back was to call its participants a bunch of "teabagging rednecks." In the article she calls conservatives that oppose gay marriage "those closet queens" who are "so full of self-lating vitriol and hatefulness." Maybe the most blatant example of her bitterness is: "Look at it this way -- you have to be damaged goods to respond to the message of a right-wing movement an dyou have to be even more damaged to want to share that message with your tribe."

Where is the open-mindedness in that? Where is the "I'm OK, you're OK" spirit of this liberal age? Wouldn't a true liberal -- if he or she were sticking to the rhetoric of "inclusiveness" -- say, "Hey, we disagree with you on the right on the facts," and leave it at that? Name calling is what people do when either they've lost the argument or fear the other side.