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"Or take Janeane Garofalo, who says stupid things with such regularity you might take her for a sulky teenager even though she's 44 years old. Because she is an ignoramus and has the self-righteous attitude of an adolescent brat, she was a perfect fit for Air America, where she and Al Franken competed to see which of them could attract fewer listeners.
"For those of you who have managed to go through life without ever having heard the nasty sound bites for which she's best known, your good luck is about to run out.
"On one occasion, she said, 'Our country is founded on a sham. Our forefathers were slave-owning rich white guys who wanted it their way. So when I see the American flag, I go, "Oh, my god, you're insulting me." That you can have a gay pride parade on Christopher Street in New York, with naked men and women on a float, cheering, "We're here and we're queer!" – that's what makes my heart swell. Not the flag, but a gay naked man or woman burning the flag. I get choked up with pride.'
"Another time, she announced, 'The world would be better off with multiple superpowers. When the Soviet Union was a superpower, the world was better off.'
"I'm sure when she shared that thought with her fellow pinheads on New York's upper Westside, there was a lot of solemn head nodding and people turning to one another, martini in hand, and saying, 'That little girl has a damn good head on her shoulders.'
"On the other hand, if she'd made such a moronic statement in Poland, Latvia, Czechoslovakia, East Germany or Hungary, I'd like to think she'd have gotten her block knocked off.
"It's usually difficult to figure out why anyone who grows up with all the advantages that go with being born in America and enjoys a moderately successful career, would hate the country as much as she does. But, at the risk of being tossed out of the layman's psychiatric association, it's hard not to view her as someone who has devoted her life to rebelling against mommy and daddy. After all, her mother worked as a secretary in the petrochemical industry and her father was an executive with Exxon!
"Not too surprisingly, Ms. Garofalo is a confirmed atheist, toured on behalf of Code Pink and campaigned for Howard Dean. Take that, Mom and Dad! For good measure, in the early '90s, she got married in a Vegas chapel. Whether she and the groom, a fellow named Robert Cohen, were or weren't drunk at the time, they soon separated, although, for reasons of their own, never bothered getting divorced.
"Although she came to be fairly well-known because of her role in 'The Truth About Cats and Dogs,' she claims she despised the movie because she regards it as anti-feminist. One wonders why, that being the case, she didn't turn down the role after reading the script. But, for someone who is so vehement in her opinions about those she regards as hypocrites, the lady manages to cut herself a great deal of slack.
"Ms. Garofalo is barely five feet tall, which meant that in 'Cats and Dogs,' because the star was Uma Thurman, she often had to stand on a soapbox in scenes with the six-foot tall actress. She must have enjoyed the experience, because in the 13 years since, she has rarely climbed down from her soapbox.
"Besides having had parents who worked in industries Ms. Garofalo hates, she isn't too happy about the hand or, rather, the size and shape God dealt her. As she says about prepping to be a stand-up comedienne, 'I was a 36C or D and at 5'1", I knew that being a small person with big boobs standing in front of an audience was not going to be easy. It would be really hard to get people to pay attention to me without mocking me. Getting a breast reduction to prepare for my career was no different from people who work to get good grades to get into a good college to get into a good graduate school to get a good job. I went down to a B-cup, and it was the best thing in the world.'
"Now, why would she assume people would mock her just because she was busty? Obviously, it's because if she were the one sitting in the audience, she'd be the one snickering and heckling. On the other hand, it's really just about impossible not to mock someone who compares studying hard in college and graduate school to going to a plastic surgeon one afternoon for a breast reduction procedure. Funny, but when I think of something to compare it to, the first thing that comes to mind is a nose job.
"She has directed much of her anger over the years at society for putting pressure on women to conform to body image ideals. And yet in pursuit of a feature role in 'Jerry Maguire,' she lost a good deal of weight, only to discover that Renee Zellweger had snagged the part.
"One could almost feel sorry for her if she weren't such a nasty piece of work. When speaking about Sarah Palin, Garofalo said, 'There is definitely something wrong about her.' I assumed she had something in mind aside from the governor's being smart, attractive and happily married. But when she got down to specifics, the best she could come up with was that Gov. Palin was small-minded and mean-spirited, whereas she, herself, is obviously open-minded and a real sweetie pie.
"When it comes to right-wingers in general, she brayed, 'The reason a person is a conservative Republican is because something is wrong with them. That's science – that's neuroscience. You cannot be well-adjusted, open-minded, pluralistic, enlightened and be a Republican. It's counterintuitive.' That's sure a lot of big words wasted only to prove what a small and petty mind she possesses.
"About the recent tea parties, the all-seeing, all-knowing gnome, who naturally didn't attend one, says, 'Let's be very honest about what this is about. This is not about bashing Democrats. It's not about taxes. They have no idea what the Boston Tea Party was about. They don't know their history at all. It's about having a black man in the White House. This is racism straight up and is nothing but a bunch of tea-bagging rednecks. There is no way around that.'
"I can't help thinking that when the surgeon reduced her breasts, he got carried away and also removed part of her brain and most of her heart.
"As if it's not bad enough that she is such an arrogant, ignorant, self-satisfied little twit who, if she'd only grow a big red mustache, would look and sound a lot like Yosemite Sam, she's also a sellout. How else to explain why she'd accept a role on '24,' portraying FBI Special Agent Janis Gold, whose mission is investigating terrorists?
"But just maybe Janeane Garofalo isn't quite as unaware of the sad truth about herself as she would have us believe. After all, it isn't as if her production company woke up one day and decided to name itself I Hate Myself Productions."
Yes, her company is really named that.
