The latest victims of this scandalous slur are Big Hollywood’s own James Hudnall and Baton Lash. Their weekly political cartoon Obama Nation” was singled out by the totalitarian thought police at Media Matters and labeled racist. They never really spelled out exactly WHY the cartoon poking fun at the hypocrisy of the First Family’s Super Bowl menu juxtaposed with Mrs. Obama’s far-reaching “Nutrition Agenda” was racist, but it doesn’t matter: If the Media Matters says you’re racist, that’s good enough for MSNBC.

Dutifully, Lawrence O’Donnell took Media Matter’s article on the subject and turned it into an epic monologue that most of us were sure was satire. Turns out, O’Donnell is not nearly creative enough to have pulled off such a feat.

The day after the story exploded Hudnall joined me for an interview. And, half-way through, Andrew Breitbart joined the party. Fans of Big Hollywood should enjoy hearing these two discussing this latest attempt to silence creative voices who dare to oppose Obama-ism:

The whole thing brings up memories of the threats on the Danish Cartoonists who mocked the prophet Muhammad, or the threats Molly Norris received when she came up with the idea for Everyone Draw Muhammad Day. In both of those cases, the cartoons were mild but they inspired mindless fanatics to threatened the cartoonists with death. Now we have poor man’s Keith Olbermann inciting mob frenzy.

The same Lawrence O’Donnell who recently showed his racial sensitivity when he said about former Republican Chairman Michael Steele:

“He’s dancing as fast as he can, trying to charm independent voters and Tea Partiers while never losing sight of his real master and paycheck provider, the Republican National Committee.”

This is the mental munchkin who called us “mentally disturbed racists” and went so far as tell people where we lived, who our spouses are and suggested they confront us. He’s like a gender impaired metro-sexual Mullah calling for a fatwa on unbelievers. Bad move, Larry. These creators aren’t going into hiding after your psychotic tirade.

MSNBC is nothing more than a low rated publicist for the Democrats and the Obama Administration. Rather than being a news man, he is a sycophantic Obama toadie trying to score points with the few brain cells he’s able to put together to read off a teleprompter. His hysterical hissy fit, worthy of making him a PMS poster child, was probably one of the last gasps of a failing career on a dying network.

Let’s look at his arguments shall we? He said we depicted the president as a half-man, half animal without even showing the art. Larry, baby, this is how they do it in lefty land. And this is the respect they show black men of great accomplishment.

Our cartoon was of a middle-aged couple who happen to be black, having dinner, arguing. It was based on a running gag we ran before and no one said a peep.

That’s because this is all manufactured outrage. A perfect example of the new McCarthyism. Instead of calling people communist, which is something they admire, they call you a racist. They want to shut you down, get you marginalized, ostracized. The R word has been their friend for many years. But now, like MSNBC’s ratings, it’s failing. People don’t automatically jump to that tune anymore. It’s old, played out, like some 90s boy band act, only lamer.

When you reduce someone to their race, you’re making a racist argument. We didn’t do that. He did. O’Donnell is the one who reduced the first family to racial stereotypes in his mind. Sounds pretty racist to me. Take that in context with his Michael Steele comment above and you see a pattern.

Over compensating there, Larry?

Political cartoons have existed for centuries, going back to ancient Roman and Greek graffiti, which mocked the powerful, bringing them down to earth. Holding up a magnifying glass to examine their foibles and peccadilloes. Cartoons exaggerate their appearance to spoof them. In most cases it is meant to be playful. Not always. Sometimes it’s mean, spiteful and sick. When it comes to bigotry and intolerance, the left wins the crown.

Batton and I have always taken the playful road. That’s because we’re not haters.

The fact is, the media attackers weren’t really interested in us as they were in building the meme that Breitbart sites are racist. Even though he has been exposing left wing racism and lies since he started, they’re trying to accuse him of everything they’ve been up to. They wanted to use our cartoons as some form of evidence in their witch hunt.

But it’s not working. On many of the progressive sites people aren’t seeing it.

I urge all my fellow cartoonists not to be cowed by the thugs and haters if they decide to attack your right to dissent. We can’t tolerate modern day witch hunts and character assassination from people who are so morally and ethically bankrupt.

And to all you people who bought into their lies, wake up. You’re being scammed by fools.

O’Donnell also spends a few minutes hoping to coax the “Dirty Dancing” star into saying something negative about Bristol Palin, either personally or about her dancing abilities. But once again, Grey keeps it classy:

Grey: I have to say that [Bristol] really came a long way.
O’Donnell: No, you don’t have to say that.
Grey: No, she did.
O’Donnell: I saw her dance.
Grey: Did you see her at the beginning, see her at the end? Totally different, and she’s a lovely girl.
O’Donnell: How could she not improve slightly? If they keep her — if the fake votes keep her in the competition the whole time.
Grey: Well, bully for her. Bully for her.

Grey couldn’t have been any more gracious. And I want to thank her for that. If you don’t insult me or mine I don’t care how you vote. So all remains good on the “Dirty Dancing” front, which is a relief because I’m kind of an eleven year-old girl when it comes to that one.

As far as O’Donnell, in this interview (and in his life) he typifies the hateful cruelty we see becoming more and more mainstreamed on the left (mostly through MSNBC). Bristol isn’t Sarah and yet he absolutely refuses to do anything other than to degrade and insult her — he refuses to let loose even a single kind word for a young woman who showed moxie, stamina, and a willingness to tough it out with an impressive display of poise and class throughout what must have been quite an ordeal that included death threats and envelopes filled with white powder addressed to her.

O’Donnell’s always been a rancid-souled bastard, but his unwillingness to check his bitter partisanship at the door even for the young daughter of a politician he disagrees with is a new low in a career of lows.

He also makes a bit of a fool of himself here trying to be cute and flirty. The whole interview reminded me of the scenes between Clarice Starling and Hannibal Lectre in “Silence of the Lambs.”

Hollywood on Uncle Sam’s terrorism fight? Don’t even ask.

But now that it’s Uncle Obama on the warpath against the most diabolical villain in the populist panoply, Hollywood is back to showing its anti-Axis resolve against this most indefensible of enemies.

That enemy (for now anyway) is the army of the overpaid — those individuals who represent an unholy axis of unsupervised greed with incomes that evoke envy in the psyche of the ordinary workin’ mench at the mercy of The Man. And why not? According to human resources expert Patrick R. Dailey, top corporate salaries are now 411 times the amount of  the lowest paid worker. In 1980, that ratio was 42 to one. By comparison, star actors are often paid more than 1,000 times the amount of the lowest salary on the set.  No matter.

To hear Hollywood  multi-millionaires like Oscar winner Michael Moore and Emmy winner Lawrence O’Donnell myopically channel Huey Long’s populism, highly paid financial industry execs and Wall Street traders are the only serpents in the suites, the only rapacious rich for making more than the $500,000 annual salary Obama deemed reasonable earlier this year for bank CEOs that received federal tax bailout bucks. But that’s bound for change.

Pay Czar Kenneth Feinberg says the upper limit will be more like $200,000 for AIG’s top people and possibly the others at rescued companies if he has his way.  Feinberg’s notion is to expand the list of the capped and that has members of the chattering class like CBS Early Show host Harry Smith openly talking about the next logical step:  “Why wouldn’t we make this law across the board and put a governor on compensation for everybody in private enterprise?”

Keeping in mind that members of said chattering class do not consider themselves part of “private enterprise,”  its members in good standing undoubtedly see their multi-million dollar incomes as exempt from limitations.  So today, it’s pay limits only for companies that directly received taxpayer cash.  But tomorrow, could it be any company or industry that benefits from special federal legislation — like tax breaks…

Like the tax break Hollywood gets?

Some states give considerable financial help for filming within their borders, but Uncle Sam helps the cameras roll too. Films that begin production by December 31st qualify for special tax treatments and that would be more than enough of an opening for Democratic Congressman Barney Frank of Massachusetts to exploit: “We are trying on every front to increase the role of government.”

Moore and O’Donnell and their many movie-biz supporters would be fine with that for everybody else, but what if that means Uncle Sam also gets to cap Hollywood’s gigantic paychecks?

Could Disney’s Bob Iger (30 million in 2008), CBS’ Les Moonves (36 million in 2008), Time Warner’s Jeff Bewkes (19 million in 2008) or DreamWork’s Jeffrey Katzenberg (11 million in 2007) or Lion’s Gate’s Jon Felheimer (6 million in 2007) get by on a paltry 200 grand? Or what about Cameron Diaz and her reported 50 million income or Simon Cowell’s 72 million or Will Smith’s 20 million plus per picture or …

They’d all still be “rich” with an income of 200 large, according to Uncle Obama’s current rationale, but the gap between above and below the line would definitely be compressed, possibly to the point of adopting a new compensation model.

While it is true that quite a few of the huge executive pay packages in public corporations can be traced to boardroom cronyism which shareholders are all but powerless to fight, those maligned bonuses are usually paid to people like Wall Street traders or salespeople who have to show bottom line results. How would that work here in Hollywood?

Hollywood is now the land of schmooze, off-book arrangements and any number of other “things” that most here would not want to tell a Congressional investigation committee or the Securities and Exchange Commission. But let’s try one measure of pure performance for people that may be paid 15 to 20 million or more for a few month’s work.

According to Forbes, The Bourne Ultimatum grossed $29 for every dollar star Matt Damon was paid.  Jennifer Aniston’s last three starring films earned $17 to every dollar she was paid. Tom Cruise, Tom Hanks and Will Smith bring in about $12 per every dollar they are paid. And Adam Sandler, Will Ferrell and Jim Carrey bring in about $9 for each buck they get. Unfortunately, that’s where the simplicity stops.

How many saw The Bourne Ultimatum just because it starred Matt Damon? How many saw it because it was a well-written, compelling story that was superbly directed and had a terrific actor ensemble ? Would just as many have seen it had the film starred somebody else? How much of the credit and compensation a star gets is due to other’s work that makes him look good? The Wall Street traders now in the class warfare crosshairs have no such variables. They either made money or they didn’t. Whether that trading helps or hurts people is a subject for another discussion, except for one point that appears to be getting ginned up as a Hollywood defense against any attempt at exerting Washington control here.

That argument is that what financial industry types do affects the well being of individuals and the economy at large, while Hollywood doesn’t do either. Good luck with that reasoning to those who think it’ll keep them away from the Frank ‘n Feinberg fingers if they start to roam. On the other hand, running a riff on that Huey Long legacy might do the trick.

During the 1930s, Louisiana’s Democratic populist Governor Huey Long was so dictatorial about wages and most everything else, that Congress started to investigate whether his state was still a republican form of government as the Constitution required. Long was murdered before committee hearings started, but its question about the limits of legitimate government control is worth considering.

At what point would Barney Frank’s forewarned government micro-managing of America disqualify it as a republican form of government? Wherever that point is, it doesn’t necessarily have to crimp Hollywood.

Huey Long has been resurrected as Michael Moore, Hollywood’s anti-capitalist Kingfish of compensation, and he’s supported by Lawrence O’Donnell and his 99% socialist Writer’s Guild garrison. Together, this formidable semantics’ force could clear the way for Frank and presumably Feinberg while protecting its own.

How? By doing two things Hollywood does best: using film and television to alter a contract –in this case the people’s contract with its government — thus creating a false perception that eventually becomes a public opinion reality.

In scripts, Moore and O’Donnell could re-write the Constitution’s Guarantee Clause to depict pay czar control and other Washington dictates to have have always been an integral part of a republican form of government. Then they could exempt themselves by turning the Equal Protection Clause into a dramatized PETA approved “Napoleon” doctrine of  Tinseltown exceptionalism reading that all animals are equal but that Hollywood animals are indeed more equal than others.

Yeah, it’s a bit of a stretch, but flyover land has been influenced by our scripted propaganda for over a century now, so why not again if it saves our bacon?

Oink.