Kathy Griffin made my late life partner, Margaret Ardussi, laugh when she was in pain and dying, as much as I’d ever heard her laugh in our 20+ years together. We watched her first HBO special, “My Life on the D-list,” again and again in the fall of 2004 in the weeks before Margaret died.
So I am willing to make a lot of allowances for Kathy Griffin.
And, since Noel Sheppard over at Newsbusters clearly does NOT follow Griffin’s work OR get her, and because I do and do, I want to explain that he is wrong to denounce Griffin’s joke about wanting celebrity financial advisor Suze Orman, who is openly lesbian, to be the first woman president.
Here’s why: Griffin started making the joke that it would take Suze Orman becoming president to get the economy prosperous again and that Orman could do it in 15 minutes almost as soon as Obama became president. Griffin is an Obama supporter, so I recognized this as one of the very first harbingers of the Kool-Aid wearing off.
Based on the things Griffin says about handling money and being an entrepreneur in her reality show, “My Life on the D-List,” I actually think Griffin is a fiscal conservative unaware — pretty much the way I was until the fall of 2008. Once she realizes what fiscal conservatism really is, and that there are conservatives who support equality for homosexuals — which is one of her favorite causes — I think she will join the team and be a great asset.
Probably what is preventing Griffin from realizing that she is a fiscal conservative, and that conservatism has a place for her and honors her individuality, is that she sees the Right as a demonic stereotypical monolith — funnily enough, that is clearly how Sheppard sees Griffin on the Left and he keeps her there by stereotyping and demonizing her.
In the meantime, Griffin has tacitly admitted that Obama is incompetent and she started joking about it practically the minute he was sworn in. THAT is what is important about the Griffin-Behar interview.
Sheppard has the interview transcript at his post at Newsbusters — the link is above. The burr under his saddle is actually my favorite line from Griffin:
Because you want a nice, financially focused, dirty lesbian running this country.
And, why yes, now that you mention it, I DO.
Something is going on. My ex who is as liberal as you can get was telling me she is concerned the Liberal government in BC is about to raise taxes on small business, “which will kill jobs.” She didn’t get that from Amy Goodman.
“Because you want a nice, financially focused, dirty lesbian running this country.”
Preferably on streaming video…
Griffin is one of my guilty pleasures. I find her political/social views hypocritical (IE: How she rails against stereotyping gays and lesbians, but propagates stereotypes against conservatives with a vengeance), but I also find her witty and deliberately offensive (for the record, I LIKE people who deliberately offend others for fun and profit, especially when they can take a shot right back at them. Griffin can, and does, and the back and forth can be hilarious).
She’s also a hell of a business woman. Many, many cocktail party limousine liberals are starting to wake up to the fact that the hope and change express isnt just taking money from rich white dudes, but blowing THEIR money too…. The backlash will be amusing.