[funkboy]

She apparently referred to President Bush in a crude remark at a recent fundraiser.

What I'm wondering is, what did she actually say? Does anyone know the actual quote?

[Spheric Harlot]

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_i...9356762832B226

Goldberg, a devout Democrat, did not spare Bush in her monologue: "Anybody who could wave to (blind singer) Stevie Wonder isn't fully there," she said to howls from the audience.

But she also produced a few embarrassed grimaces with an unsubtle anatomical double-entendre enjoining voters to "keep Bush where it belongs and not in the White House."

[deedar]

Why is this any worse than Dennis Miller who, while actually introducing Bush, made some crack about Kerry and Edwards "getting a room" since they can't keep their hands off each other. Double standard?

[PacHead]

Whoopi is free to say what she pleases, and her employers are free to fire her if they so wish.

Apparently, many of the company's customers were outraged by her remarks. If somebody is going to be a spokesman/woman, then one would be wise in choosing somebody that most people do not have a problem with. Given the choice of having many angry customers, or giving her the boot, they decided to tell her to take a hike.

[CRASH HARDDRIVE]

Originally posted by PacHead:
Whoopi is free to say what she pleases, and her employers are free to fire her if they so wish.

Yup.

[BRussell]

Of course Whoopi is free to say what she wants, and her employer is free to fire her as long as it's not forbidden by her contract with them. But I think it also reveals something about the the current climate. Bush himself talked about how bad this was. What a friggin whiner. The criticism he gets is so much tamer than criticism of our presidents used to be.

There was a thread (I think it was Lerkfish's) a while back asking what the main campaign themes will be. This, IMO, is clearly one of Bush's main themes - that there's something wrong with criticizing the president, that the Dems are too "angry," etc. You see it in Bush's Hitler ad from a few weeks ago, from Bush's statements about this celebrity event, from all the references to supposedly "angry" Democrats, etc. They're really playing up this idea that too much criticism, or the wrong kind of criticism, is something that should be held against the Dems.

[funkboy]

Originally posted by Spheric Harlot:
But she also produced a few embarrassed grimaces with an unsubtle anatomical double-entendre enjoining voters to "keep Bush where it belongs and not in the White House."

I don't get it... that's not very bad at all. If she had concocted a line using the words dick and bush near each other, I may be unhappy... or something about trimming a bush... or a lot of other things... but she just said "keep it where it belongs." Where does it belong? Not in the White House, according to her. Not a big deal... this is horrible reactionism from the White House, especially when talk show hosts embarass the president much more every night.

The fact that Kerry was laughing at the joke makes sense - it was a fundraiser, he's getting money from these people, so sure he's going to try and have a good time. It's also a private affair - it's intended to drum up support of the audience who attended the event. It's not supposed to encourage everyone in America to do the same - the audience was primarily Democrat, and so the performers felt they could take some liberty with what would be 'acceptable.'

Originally posted by deedar:
Why is this any worse than Dennis Miller who, while actually introducing Bush, made some crack about Kerry and Edwards "getting a room" since they can't keep their hands off each other. Double standard?

Yes, double standard. You are absolutely correct.

[macvillage.net]

Originally posted by BRussell:
Of course Whoopi is free to say what she wants, and her employer is free to fire her as long as it's not forbidden by her contract with them. But I think it also reveals something about the the current climate. Bush himself talked about how bad this was. What a friggin whiner. The criticism he gets is so much tamer than criticism of our presidents used to be.

There was a thread (I think it was Lerkfish's) a while back asking what the main campaign themes will be. This, IMO, is clearly one of Bush's main themes - that there's something wrong with criticizing the president, that the Dems are too "angry," etc. You see it in Bush's Hitler ad from a few weeks ago, from Bush's statements about this celebrity event, from all the references to supposedly "angry" Democrats, etc. They're really playing up this idea that too much criticism, or the wrong kind of criticism, is something that should be held against the Dems.

I'm a little concerned about any climate where critizing the president is frowned upon. It's ideas like that which let Stalin get where he did.

[Spliffdaddy]

I just write it all off as what's to be expected from a gathering of Democrats.

It's a bad reflection on all Democrats. Which is cool with me - 'cause I'm a Republican.

But a lot of Dems who aren't perverts (your grandparents?) probably won't like the stigma attached to being a (perverted) Democrat.



lol.

PS, the DNC was asked by the press to provide a videotape of the event - so everyone could see for themselves what happened. They declined. But suggested they might work out some sort of 'swap' for some videotaped dirt on the Republicans.

um.
whatever.

[Invictus]

Originally posted by Spliffdaddy:
'cause I'm a Republican.
um.
whatever.

Yeah...whatever!

[deomacius]

I think entertainers should stick to entertaining and stop pushing their own political views. I wouldn't take my political views from an entertainer, but some (I fear a large number of people) would.

Problem fixed.

[thunderous_funker]

Originally posted by deomacius:
I think entertainers should stick to entertaining and stop pushing their own political views. I wouldn't take my political views from an entertainer, but some (I fear a large number of people) would.

Problem fixed.

Does that go for the entertainers on TV "news" networks as well?

[deomacius]

Originally posted by thunderous_funker:
Does that go for the entertainers on TV "news" networks as well?

I'm asking nicely that you not twist my words. You knew precisely what I meant when i said it.

[angaq0k]

Originally posted by deomacius:
I think entertainers should stick to entertaining and stop pushing their own political views. I wouldn't take my political views from an entertainer, but some (I fear a large number of people) would.

Problem fixed.

So you are saying that political opinion should be left to politicians and no one else?

Should let politicians vote for themselves then?

Are you a politician yourself? If not, why would your political opinion matter?

[Jansar]

The fact that Kerry didn't adress the issue in a negative way just makes him look even more careless and selfish. Even Al Gore tried to silence anti-Republican conventions that got too extreme.

[MindFad]

My goodness! Is this some kind of HBO special!?

Originally posted by Jansar:
The fact that Kerry didn't adress the issue in a negative way just makes him look even more careless and selfish.

I can't believe you guys are serious.

Then I realize you are, and that's sad.

Buncha up tight sissies.

[hyperb0le]

Heh, it doesn't seem that bad to me... If anything, I'd think the feminists would be upset, because I interpret the joke to mean "Keep women out of the white house." Unless G. W. Bush has had some secret surgery, I don't believe he has a bush

[Jansar]

Originally posted by MindFad:
My goodness! Is this some kind of HBO special!?



I can't believe you guys are serious.

Then I realize you are, and that's sad.

Buncha up tight sissies.

What's wrong with the facts? Look at how the Dems represent themselves in public.

I'll let history speak for itself. I rest my case.

[UNTeMac]

Originally posted by Jansar:
What's wrong with the facts? Look at how the Dems represent themselves in public.

I'll let history speak for itself. I rest my case.

More generalizing and demonizing of a whole group. You know, doing the hard thing and actually realizing that everyone is not the same and that they don't all fit into your neat little categories would be a great step forward for some on both sides.

[MindFad]

Facts about what? I was talking about your statement was about Kerry looking selfish and careless because he didn't address her joke. I thought it was ridiculous. No point in getting in a bickering match about how particular members of each political party present themselves or the jabs they take at each other. Both parties are guilty of it.

I think people are making a mountain out of a molehill, and it's funny.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally posted by Jansar:
The fact that Kerry didn't adress the issue in a negative way just makes him look even more careless and selfish. Even Al Gore tried to silence anti-Republican conventions that got too extreme.

You're seriously claiming that Whoopi telling the attendants of the fund-raiser as part of a stand-up routing to "keep Bush where it belongs, and not in the White House" is "too extreme"?

I have no idea what padded little corner of the world you are currently growing up in, but you're gonna hafta grow a little bit of skin before you hit the real world eventually.

-s*

[spacefreak]

Originally posted by macvillage.net:
I'm a little concerned about any climate where critizing the president is frowned upon. It's ideas like that which let Stalin get where he did.

Do you not understand the difference between criticizing the President or his policies, and being disgustingly rude and offensive?

[spacefreak]

Originally posted by Spheric Harlot:
You're seriously claiming that Whoopi telling the attendants of the fund-raiser as part of a stand-up routing to "keep Bush where it belongs, and not in the White House" is "too extreme"?

Oh, is that it? You were there I take it?

There's a reason the DNC won't release the tape of the event.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally posted by spacefreak:
Oh, is that it? You were there I take it?

There's a reason the DNC won't release the tape of the event.

I base that on the same quote from the article as you - unless YOU were there?

[macvillage.net]

Originally posted by spacefreak:
Do you not understand the difference between criticizing the President or his policies, and being disgustingly rude and offensive?

Just because he doesn't like it, doesn't make it wrong.

I could say it's 'rude and offensive' to anything... doesn't mean it really is.


Bush went as far as using Hitler in his campaign... quite 'rude and offensive' to rub in the face of Jewish Americans... but the second someone barked on that, they were told to shut up by RNC.

I smell double standard.

[OldManMac]

Doubel standard and hypocrisy it is!

-----------

Published on Friday, July 16, 2004 by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette


Whoopi Goldberg Brings Hypocrites from Under Their Rocks

by Tony Norman


Let's hope that Democratic Party apparatchiks have more intestinal fortitude than Unilever NV, the Dutch conglomerate that just dropped Whoopi Goldberg as the pitchwoman for its chalky-tasting Slim-Fast diet drink.

Honestly, I've never quite understood the eyebrow-less comedienne's appeal. I missed her one-woman Broadway show that transformed welfare mom and aspiring actress Caryn Johnson into Whoopi Goldberg, but there's little doubt that the show's live recording is hilarious.

Fast forward through the 1980s and '90s, though, and it becomes clear that Whoopi's appearance in such subpar films as "Homer and Eddie" and "Jumpin' Jack Flash" revealed a penchant for inexplicably bad career moves. She's obviously a smart woman who, despite an enviable record as the host on the Academy Awards, continues to gravitate toward truly wretched material.

Sure, she redeemed herself as the mysterious bartender on "Star Trek: The Next Generation," but Goldberg nearly blew a hole in her credentials as a proud black woman when former boyfriend Ted Danson wore blackface while feting her during a notorious Friars Club roast 11 years ago.

It was left to anarchic comedian Bobcat Goldthwait to become the evening's moral center when he said: "Jesus Christ, Ted, what were you thinking? Do you think black people think blackface is funny in 1993?"

During the brouhaha that pitted the comedienne against a black liberal establishment that was still mad at her for "The Color Purple," Danson let slip that Goldberg wrote the tasteless material he was being skewered for.

In retrospect, the former "Cheers" star's attempt to save his own cork-burned hide plays like an ironic dress rehearsal for Justin Timberlake's gutless disavowal of Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" a decade later. The more things change, the more things stay the same, I suppose.

My point is that when it comes to Whoopi Goldberg, her track record as an agitprop princess is well documented. Disavowing it isn't an option. If your political party invites her to co-headline a private fund-raiser, you're going get raunchy material, fiercely partisan jabs and few, if any, inhibitions. Oh, and you'll raise $7.5 million toward the goal of unseating the president.

A week ago, Whoopi stood on the stage of Radio City Music Hall sipping wine and making unflattering comparisons between her genitalia and President Bush. Puerile sexual humor bores me silly, but, hey, lots of Democrats and Republicans seem to like it. Castle Shannon native turned conservative comic Dennis Miller is particularly adept at it, though he's typically not as funny as Whoopi.

For days, every archconservative with a bully pulpit has weighed in with rabid denunciations of Goldberg, Hollywood liberals and the Kerry-Edwards ticket. The attempt to smear the Democratic challengers as "immoral" because they grinned nervously through Whoopi's performance is a transparently cynical exercise in political hypocrisy.

How many Republican candidates stomped out of GOP fund-raisers when the Clintons were the butt of vulgar jokes? Rush Limbaugh and his imitators could fill phone books with lascivious jokes about Bill and Monica.

That's why their foaming at the mouth over a tasteless stand-up act is pure demagoguery. Even so, Slim-Fast dropped Whoopi's endorsement deal faster than the comic dropped pounds as soon as the word "boycott" appeared.

The Democrats knew when they recruited her that Whoopi Goldberg wasn't going to go along with the "divine right of kings" mentality that paralyzes so much of the mainstream media. Unless Kerry and Edwards want to return the money she helped raise that night, they'd better not even think about apologizing for a vulgar display of partisan rabble-rousing that mirrors the vulgar state of American politics.

Thank goodness Lenny Bruce is dead. Even he would have a hard time dealing with the pornography of false outrage.

[PacHead]

Originally posted by macvillage.net:
Bush went as far as using Hitler in his campaign...

I believe the "Hitler" part of Bush's ad was taken from moveon.org's site.

The left were the people who used Hitler, as usual.

[MindFad]

Originally posted by PacHead:
I believe the "Hitler" part of Bush's ad was taken from moveon.org's site.

The left were the people who used Hitler, as usual.

Originally posted by KarlG:
<article>

[BlackGriffen]

Originally posted by spacefreak:
Do you not understand the difference between criticizing the President or his policies, and being disgustingly rude and offensive?

What's disgustingly rude and offensive about a woman's bush? Are you one of them ho-mo-sexuals?



Tasteless humor of my own aside, what's the big deal? Conservatives called Bill Clinton "slick Willie" for his whole term. Though I don't know if they realized that in some dialects of English that could be understood to mean "lubricated penis" (how prophetic). Cigar jokes and references to blue dresses are especially funny.

I am so damn sick of the puritanical bull$hit that passes for politics here in the U$ that it makes me want to puke. The president is not a moral leader, and is not above being the butt of jokes, dirty or otherwise. The president is a freaking politician. His duties include administration, diplomacy, and politics. That's it, end of story. The president doesn't have to be abso-freakin-lutely perfect in every way, either.

What this country needs is another president in a wheelchair; one the press doesn't pussyfoot about showing. Max Cleland, anyone? How about a single president? Or a non-christian one? That all of these scenarios are so unimaginable is precisely the problem I am talking about.

Also, Whoopi isn't the first person to make such jokes. The first one for this administration I remember comes from newly minted conservative poster boy Denis Miller. I'm having trouble finding the transcript to the pre 9/11 rant, but it went something like: "It's kind of disturbing that the three most powerful men in America are named Dick, Bush, and Colin." (ie dick, bush, and colon).

BlackGriffen

[PacHead]

Originally posted by MindFad:

So, I am a crybaby for pointing out where the original hitler footage came from ? ok.....

If anybody is crying now, it is probably this person.

She did reportedly lose more than a million of these afterall.

I'm sure a million bucks is no small sum for even somebody who is famous like she is.

[angaq0k]

Originally posted by PacHead:
So, I am a crybaby for pointing out where the original hitler footage came from ? ok.....

If anybody is crying now, it is probably this person.

She did reportedly lose more than a million of these afterall.

I'm sure a million bucks is no small sum for even somebody who is famous like she is.

I'd say it must have been worth it.

Ot there is a lawsuit brewing somewhere...

[boots]

Originally posted by spacefreak:
Do you not understand the difference between criticizing the President or his policies, and being disgustingly rude and offensive?

i guess Leno, Letterman, and Stewart should be looking for a different line of work then.

[PacHead]

Originally posted by angaq0k:
I'd say it must have been worth it.

Ot there is a lawsuit brewing somewhere...

She is of course free to sue, obviously. If she will win or not, that is another matter altogether.

[KeyLimePi]

I actually feel bad for Kerry in all this. At a Democratic fundraiser, you would expect some measure of support for the Democractive candidate and his initiatives. Instead it seems the theme of the evening was just showing disgust for Bush. It's like going out on a date with someone you really like, only to have her spend the entire evening talking about how much she hates her ex.

[Jansar]

Originally posted by KeyLimePi:
I actually feel bad for Kerry in all this. At a Democratic fundraiser, you would expect some measure of support for the Democractive candidate and his initiatives. Instead it seems the theme of the evening was just showing disgust for Bush. It's like going out on a date with someone you really like, only to have her spend the entire evening talking about how much she hates her ex.

That's a good analogy there.