Dick Wolf

The last episode was “Fed.” It’s a story about an ACORN-like community organizing group called “Rights Alliance.” The founder of the Rights Alliance has a conservative infiltrator murdered to “cover up a cover-up.” The cover up is an affair the founder was having with one of its members. The “cover up of the cover-up” was the money being paid by the founder to his mistress’s husband to keep the affair quiet. The right-wing infiltrator was murdered because he had been secretly video taping a sting he was arranging unrelated to the affair–clearly meant to be reminiscent of the O’Keefe/Giles real life ACORN investigation. The founder feared this tape would open the organization up to scrutiny, thus exposing his affair and the subsequent monetary extortion to his girlfriend’s husband. We are not supposed to be shedding too many tears for our murder victim, given he was “tricking a few dumb kids in an ambush video.”

The victim was found with the words “Fed” printed on his chest, apparently to throw our eagle-eyed detective team of Bernard and Lupo off the scent. You see, “right wingers” hate government so much we murder government employees all the time. Of course, Rights Alliance is a non-profit group, not a Government agency, but the writers assume dopey murdering “right wingers” might think Rights Alliance are government agents. This makes scrawling the word “Fed” on the victim’s chest a great ruse. Get it?

But the real action is how “conservatives” are portrayed and characterized. As implied above, the show makes more sense as a parody of the left-wing view of the right than it is effective propaganda for the left. This is now its entertainment value. The first suspect for the infiltrator’s murder is a “Patriot Ranger,” a crazed group that is stated to be linked with “last summer’s Tea Party Movement.” The Patriot Rangers look like casting rejects from the movie “Deliverance.” They carry rifles in Manhattan, are unshaven, uncouth, and it looks like you could smell them from 50 feet. The suspect, who is innocent, is still made to appear repulsive. He calls the detectives “Obamabots,” which they reacted to with shock and anger.

Our erstwhile “O’Keefe” style infiltrator is said to be a “militant conservative.” What makes one a militant conservative? Our murder victim is “militant” because in college he ran a student group supporting George W. Bush’s reelection. His roommate from college tells the detective Lupo the O’Keefe character “hated liberals.”

Of course, Jack McCoy has to get in his two cents. He states how he has always been a supporter of Rights Alliance, which “has worked across party lines.” He proceeds to tell his DAs to “go the extra mile” before “blowing up” up the Rights Alliance group because of its historical good works like “predatory lending reform,” “housing reform,” and “minimum wage reform”–the heart of the left’s financial reform agenda. (The first two were instrumental in helping take down our financial system in 2008.)

In a “town hall” meeting held by McCoy for Patriot Rangers (read: Teabaggers) and Rights Alliance, both groups get unruly, but the worst epithets naturally emanate from the Rangers. One exclaims: “Socialist Scum!” McCoy is genuinely pained when the Rights Alliance group does not believe his plea for patience because he supported their work for years. He made no such assertion to the “Deliverance” styled Patriot Ranger/Tea Party crowd.

This episode also comes on the heels of an “SVU” show earlier in the week where some character refers to various Fox opinion show hosts and Rush Limbaugh as “cancers” in society.

There is a “Last Days of Pompeii” feel to Wolf’s “Law and Order” empire. He has become very wealthy delivering prime time crime drama to television, and the truth is his shows have been high quality. But it’s time to hang it up. These shows have become message delivery machines. When drama is subordinated to politics, it’s no longer popular art, but cheap propaganda.

Dick should get out while it’s only a little too late.

Remember this moment, folks.  November 21, 2009 at 11:30pm.  Over one year after Obama’s election and just more than ten months into his administration, “Saturday Night Live” takes its first crack at Obama for something other than not being left enough.  Splash of ice-cold water here:

The sketch really isn’t pro-conservative as much as it’s anti-Obama.  SNL mocks the stimulus, Cash for Clunkers, the debt Obama is increasing exponentially, and Obamacare’s bogus accounting, not to mention the fact that Fred Armisen’s too-cool-for-school Obama took the night off, but the writers are careful not argue for an alternative.  SNL deftly takes a crack at one side without directly supporting the other side, a tactic “South Park” has down to a science.  The sketch isn’t rock-solid from a policy standpoint, so we will post the clip of the CNN fact check once they air it.

SNL’s “Palin 2012” trailer after the jump:

SNL also took a shot at Sarah Palin last night with a satirical trailer riffing off of Roland Emmerich’s “2012” (which opened last week) where Sarah Palin’s 2012 presidential election leads to Armageddon. Yet, SNL flexes its cunning again by noting “Palin 2012″ is brought to you by the DNC and “the mind of Keith Olbermann.” We figure SNL either intended this to be a dig at the left’s obsession and fear of the Going Rogue author or their way of preempting attacks from media outlets, like, say, this one.  Either way, well played.

The concept for the sketch does seem to fall into the “too good to resist” category, since “2012″ is the title of a blockbuster movie and an election year.  It also wouldn’t make sense that an Obama RE-election would lead to calamity since we will have (presumably) survived his first term, so it figures a Republican would be the subject of the sketch. It’s far from a shocker that SNL chose Palin over other possible 2012 candidates like Romney or Huckabee.  Still, SNL certainly has resisted dozens of obvious Obama jokes over the last couple years, so we’re interested to hear if you give them a pass for this one.

Now, only CNN could do this with a straight face. According to the network, some say talk radio is “viciously partisan,” without of course defining “some,” as “people who work at CNN.” And so the segment began, with CNN using a shrink to examine the typical listener, as though he belonged to a rare breed of lizard that dines only on feces.

Check it out, check-it-outers. 

So the shrink, probably a devoted NPR fan – dismisses Rush’s popularity as the product of a bullying mentality – that the typical conservative finds safety and security under Rush’s protection in an otherwise friendless universe.

The solution? You could smell it coming: More access to liberal talk radio. According to the nutso radio host Randi Rhodes (who claims she’s not a liberal!), that’s what’s missing. Apparently, the left is banned from talk radio!

I’m sorry, but I don’t see a sign at the clubhouse, saying “no liberal hosts.” The only sign is from the public, who hates them. It’s called supply and demand. The demand is for a conservative viewpoint – and it’s currently being supplied.

What happens when you supply a product for which there is no demand?

You get Air America. Some might call that a noble experiment, but it was neither noble, or experimental. Instead it functioned like a jar of leftwing preserves– a time capsule of corrupt liberal thinking, circa 1977. And, of course, for NPR to succeed, it needs government assistance. For liberal ideas to survive, you need welfare.

So, in short, CNN is right: talk radio is about access. But they’ve got it backwards. The reason why talk radio is conservative isn’t because radio limits access for the left. It’s conservative, because the rest of the media limits access from the right. Other than Fox News, talk radio is the only place you can hear another point of view.

It’s a shame CNN can’t be happy with that. But like a whiny child who needs all the stuffed animals in the toy store, it won’t rest until there’s no opposition. It wants the Fairness Doctrine, when what it really needs is a spanking.

And if you disagree with me, then you’re probably a racist.

Tonight we’ve have the delicious Remi Spencer, the delightful Father Jonathan, the hilarious Joe DeRosa, and more!

The list was comically, painfully long and the audience applauded and laughed at the real-life, obvious absence of leadership the sketch had captured in President Obama.  It is key to remember this is the work of comedy writers who could not find something funny about candidate or President Obama for nearly two years.  They did all they could to mock anyone and everyone around the man as to avoid skewering the “One” bearing gifts of “hope and change.”  But we’re coming up on a year in elected office and the liberals have grown restless.  

While their motives were most likely to gently nudge their hero to act on his promises, SNL’s writers still came to the conclusion that they couldn’t afford to lose what comedic street credibility they have left.  Doing what they’ve done since the late 70s, SNL finally acknowledged what the electorate recognized in our Commander in Chief months ago. Enter CNN.

Monday, October 6th Wolf Blitzer took to the airwaves:

“It seems no politician is safe from Saturday Night Live. While many people think SNL has mostly spared President Obama, what they’re doing now is not necessarily all that kind. They essentially cast the leader of the free world as a do-nothing president, at least so far. Even though SNL deals in comedy, what they said about the President rings true for a lot of you, apparently. So, did the show accurately capture a mood, or did it go off track for comedic effect? Let’s bring in CNN’s Kareen Wynter. She’s checking the facts for us. All right, Kareen, what are you finding out?”

Yes, CNN fact-checked the comedy of Saturday Night Live. 

Just this past Saturday, yet another opening SNL sketch slapped President Obama for receiving the Nobel Peace Prize.  Armisen’s Obama conceded he’s accomplished absolutely nothing to deserve the award.   The sketch again received big laughs and applause – and more scrutiny from news media.   This time, the analysis came from the news division of SNL’s parent network, NBC.  Sunday’s NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt found the anchor asking his correspondent if the White House was “concerned” about the “comedy gloves coming off.” 

The comedy world sat up and took notice of the press scrutiny immediately.  The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart launched into a blistering, 12-minute assault on CNN’s fact-checking session this week.  “While you were doing your research did you also find that sharks live in water and don’t deliver candy grams…,” demanded Stewart, referring to a classic SNL sketch called Land Shark.

While Stewart’s admonishment of CNN was hilarious, it was also telling.  In just over 20 minutes of actual programming, the host and writers devoted two-thirds of their comedy to assailing CNN.  Why?  Stewart and company have just been introduced to the chilling effect of a White House and news media offensive traditionally reserved for the “wing-nuts” on Fox News and talk radio.

 It’s a beautiful symphony when your comedy, the White House, and the news media are on the same stage swinging at conservatives in concert.  Last week, however, the comedians strayed from the sheet music in a major way.  The public was demanding their honesty if they were to still enjoy a credible laugh with their favorite shows.   In delivering for their audience, our friends in comedy got a taste of the treatment “tea partiers” and conservative talk radio regularly receives.    Welcome to the enemies list, funny men.

This will certainly be only the beginning.  The fact that CNN and NBC News find comedians poking fun at the president as “news” acknowledges what honest media watchers have known all along.  The press, the President, and comedy formed an unspoken “circle of trust” with one another when it came to the Obama administration.  Banning together, they helped elect an inexperienced radical as President.  They also acknowledge their power “misdirected” individually can destroy all they worked together to create. 

The press is still willing to battle on behalf of this White House, but the comedians are off the reservation – choosing honesty over ideology.    The comedian’s punishment?  Fact checking and discrediting attacks from their former pals.   In no time, surely good members of Congress will call for a Comedy Fairness Doctrine.  Perhaps all broadcasts of comedy material should be reviewed by the White House before delivery?  Maybe an appointed, diverse community board of writers should be created in New York and L.A?  If the comedy seems particularly biting to the President or the Democrat Congress, President Obama’s appointed board members may add and subtract punch lines to maintain a sense of humorous equilibrium.

Sure it sounds absurd.  It did to talk radio hosts once, too.  Not so funny now, is it?

This sketch wasn’t aimed at Rahm Emanuel, Joe the Biden, or Tim Geithner… it was targeting the Man himself.  But did SNL really turn over a new leaf?  Nope.  The criticism leveled at Obama was that he is failing to execute the brilliantly conceived left-wing aspects of his agenda as stated in his campaign.  Of course, there is no casting judgment on those ideas and no mention that most of America doesn’t actually support them.

This is a tactic Bill Maher has mastered.  He has repeatedly leveled humorous critique at Obama, but the arguments always hinge around Obama not behaving like the left-winger we thought we elected.

While it was refreshing to see a sketch where Obama is the punch line, Big Hollywood’s massive editorial staff is still unimpressed (and un-amused, but that’s for another post).

We invite you to use the comments to list some of the things Obama has thus far failed to do that would have appeared in the sketch had the writers been more sympathetic to those of the center-right persuasion.

Alinsky

I never really had any insight into the pure comic genius of Saul Alinsky until I saw his new age Method followers display their considerable chops on the national stage. James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles, the Master’s ostentatious and envelope-pushing Dan Aykroyd and Gilda Radner-like proteges, whose hilarious ACORN skits also showed brilliant flashes of the late great Allen Funt. The Mysterious Mister X, the L.A. street comic who “Alinskyed” Faris Alkhateeb’s boredom-fueled Obama Joker art into an urban poster as devilishly humorous as Hannibal Lecter, also made as big a national splash as a 300-pound chub doing a cannonball into a crowded public kiddie pool.

Now I see the funny side. In fact, I’m getting Alinsky-inspired comic epiphanies of my own now. Who can say that deep down, that pathetic weepy drama queen performance by Nancy Pelosi on national TV pleading for people to “just stop it!” wasn’t the old Alinsky talking? Unfortunately for Madame Speaker, I’ve got the new age mischievous spirit of Saul Alinsky tugging at my muse. Struck me right away: the Pelosi video from 2006 in which Madame Speaker, addressing a moonbat rally, called Lefty anti-war protesters “patriots” and praised disruptions of town halls as a public service.

Eureka! What a side-by-side video comedy skit that would make! First cheering on the mad Lefty crowd like Ernst Roem rallying the Brownshirts, then all mournful like Vivien Leigh at the end of Gone With The Wind. Frankly, Madame Speaker, not only do I not give a damn, I’m going to hoist you on your own goddamn Saul Alinsky petard! Just like the Master would have wanted me to.

Another Alinsky-inspired banana peel laff riot might be editing videos of any Pelosi-like liberal Democrat Congressional reps who tearfully pleaded for support of the massive ObamaCare and Cap-and-Tax bills, then joked about not reading them. Getting the Alinsky hang of it now, people? Saul Alinsky was a comedic poet, and we didn’t even know it. Who’d a-thunk it, except perhaps those who knew him best? You know, I’ll bet if you canvassed his old neighborhoods in Chicago and Carmel, it would be just like the SNL interviews of neighbors who knew Buckwheat’s assassin:

REPORTER: “Did you know Mister Alinsky was a news-making community organizer?”

NEIGHBOR: “Yes. Very nice man.”

REPORTER: “Ever think he’d become the world’s most subversive political comedian?”

NEIGHBOR: “Oh, sure. That’s all he ever talked about.”

Here’s where I need your Alinsky-like help, my fellow mischievous political terrorist comedians, which we Americans all are at heart. Fight The Power! We The People are all in this together. I’m a comedy writer, mostly. My own brand of Alinsky humor is subversion with words. Don’t know the first fucking thing about making videos. That’s the director’s job, at least until I can take that two-day crash course that greatly helped Tarantino, Rodroguez and Chris Nolan, okay?

Doesn’t help me now. So would some helpful street comedians please throw those sharply contrasting Pelosi and other damning LibDem Lefty videos together in Alinsky-like subversively comic fashion? You can even edit in the videos where Madame Speaker first screams to the skies about CIA lies, then fumbles and stumbles on the air for five minutes trying to remember her own. Make a whole skit out of it. Scenes with biased reporters getting “Alinskyed” when they preach about objectivity write themselves. And it will all be classic Saul Alinksy and SNL-style comedy fun, fun, fun!

I am finding more and more that the Alinsky Method of comedy is manic brilliance. As sophisticated and erudite as Tracy and Hepburn, yet as moronically slapstick as the Three Stooges. And that is the sheer Wile E. Coyote genius of the Alinsky Method. Turn the whole show on its head for all sides. It is as insidiously and comically brilliant as the wave of professional hit men sent to the Oktoberfest in Munich to assassinate Inspector Clouseau, then wound up killing each other off to the last man.

For forty years the American Left has been having all the fun adhering to the Alinsky Method. Even drove its most charismatic protege into the White House, and his fellow Alinskyites to near-absolute power in Congress. Sans humor, but what do want from the Left? Yet the blackly comic Alinsky Method of today may yet drive that same humorless old school Alinsky army to Exit Stage Left faster than you can say “ACORN!” And that is the sheer subversive comic ingenuity of the Great Mr. Alinsky.

I know that wherever he is today (and I really hope it’s Heaven, he deserves it), the great Saul Alinsky is smiling down on the absurdity of it all. He must have been rolling on the streets of gold when he saw that first Pimp and Ho video, at least as much as when he saw Eddie Murphy’s White Like Me skit. Life Is Beautiful, and so is Saul Alinsky. May he forever Rest in Peace. At least during the times he isn’t falling to pieces over the ACORN videos, and glowing in the realization that it is all his fault.

Alinsky seminar over. Here’s your reading assignment: the Master’s Playboy interview. Let’s get busy, people! Oh, and if want a tagline for my recommended Pelosi comedy montage, my pick is PELOSI LIES, THE CIA AND FREEDOM OF SPEECH DIES! It’s all in how you pitch it, folks. I would also recommend as a great source of material the Alinksy-like pics and videos of Lefty protests in the past, for both side-by-sides and slogans of our own. Just like the Viet Cong scavenged our unexploded bombs to use against us, but much better. It’s all in fun, and nobody loses an eye.

God Bless You Mr. Alinsky, wherever you are. Wiseass punk! Ledger’s Joker ain’t got nothin’ on you!

As I share the shocking information that our Freedom of Speech is being attacked, the radio host across from me, his face, it looks like he just ate a lemon. It’s all scrunched up like…he hates me. He abruptly cuts me off and ends my interview. I’m stupefied at the reaction of people who “just can’t handle the truth.” My driver Shelley is a liberal. She doesn’t say anything. As we get in the car I try to apologize, “Well, he asked me why I was a new political activist.  I guess I should just tell jokes.” I mean I have been hired basically to sell tickets to a bar where people will spend lots of money on alcohol. And, I do need to make some money. My husband is a cop.

And don’t get me started on the Obama Gates Crowley Beer Summit. I wrote 15 articles about racism and tore them up. My husband kept chiding me, “White people can’t discuss race.”

But, I must say. Sgt. Crowley is a first class act. A shout out to you, Sgt.  I love cops, as you can see by the above photo.

Anyway, my next stop is the rock station. It’s ironic for me to be there since I have never owned a stereo or a rock n’ roll record and went to a Baptist high school where in the late 70’s we were actually told to burn/break our rock records–I didn’t have any to burn/break.  I am telling my Kurt Cobain story about how I hooked up Weird Al with Kurt so he could get permission to write the parody “Smells Like Teen Sweat,” when I am pleasantly surprised by a cell phone call from Jessica Hahn.  Yes, the Jessica Hahn. What great radio, right?  I ask her if she’ll be in my “on-air” interview and she agrees. She understands “the business.” Jessica and I have recently struck up a friendship finding we live in the same LA area.  I had met her briefly fifteen years ago on the set of “Unhappily Ever After.”  I had apologized for parody-ing her with my “I Am Not a Bimbo” song on SNL. She was gracious and sweet. We share a background in the church and we both still study the Bible! Anyway, I knock out the rock station interview thanks to Jessica Hahn and go back to my hotel.

I scour the internet and find that the conservative big shots are now fully engaged in this battle against our government.  I send in two emails to flag@whitehouse.gov. I figure I’m already on their “list.” One of my emails says, “Is this a joke?”  One says, “How dare you attack our Freedom of Speech!  Stop the Snitch Program!  It’s illegal!” So, you see, I’m really, really on their “list.”   I’m wondering what will happen to the people on “the list.”  Audit? Jail? Death?  I’m starting to feel exactly the same as the Soviets and the Cubans.  I now understand perfectly why they risked their lives heading to Miami on rafts. The fear is palpable.  The invisible oppression of being watched.  The White House is trying to intimidate my fellow Americans from speaking out, from asking questions about this Socialized Medicine.  Nancy Pelosi is on TV saying we wear swastikas! What planet is she from?  It’s all a jumble of anger and fear and lies. My country.

My hope rises as I read Cornyn and Sekulow’s letters to the President.  They know the legal lingo.  They are representing me. Whew. And of course, there is God.  And, I pray.

My next radio interview is a “phoner.”  I gaze out the window at the beautiful Denver mountains as I sink luxuriously into this interview with a fellow conservative.  He gets it.  He is surprised that I am in the fight along with him, to save our country. My next few interviews are frivolous.  I try to accentuate the ditz in me, to sell tickets, to make Wende, the club owner like me and have me back.

Onstage, I try out a new song, “White Men,” dedicated to Sonja Sotomayer.  One audience loves it.  One is completely silent.  I decide to skip the song for the rest of the shows.  After the show, one lady comes up to me and grasps my hand in both of hers.  She whispers, “Thank you so much for speaking up, about our country.”  Her eyes look deep into mine. I feel like we have both scratched the fish symbol into the sand, during the Roman Empire times. The fall of the Roman Empire.

As usual, Dick Cheney is right and Barack Obama is wrong.

It’s time to wave the pink flag and drop opposition to gay marriage.

I’ve changed my thinking on this one. Personally, I admit my opposition to gay marriage has always been on the same level as my opposition to the death penalty: I understand and appreciate the arguments against both intellectually – but in actual practice, I simply don’t lose any sleep over either. With the death penalty, I sympathize with moral opposition – but when a Ted Bundy takes that final ride on “Old Sparky” (or that final big sleep on “Old Lethal Injectiony”), my only real objection is that it isn’t televised.

Similarly, with gay marriage, I understand those who have a religious objection to the concept (unlike, say, every single liberal true-believer I’ve ever met in my life, I tend to err on the side of respecting other people’s religious beliefs…that’s how my mother raised me), but in actual practice, my reaction is, well, kind of Zen. It’s like the old philosophy question: if two gay men get married in Vermont, and I’m not invited to the ceremony, are they really making any noise that affects my life one way or the other?

Like most of my deeply held convictions, this one grew out of developments in my show business career (like, say, every single other actor I’ve ever met in my life, I am a remarkably shallow, self-centered individual). Recently, the NY Friars Club had a roasting competition – a series of celebrity roasts held at the club with a bunch of us comics competing for valuable cash and prizes (or a free chicken dinner with Mickey Freeman). The comics’ names were all thrown into a hat and matched up with various celebrity roastees. I got lucky. I could have been roasting Vincent Pastore (Big Pussy – how many more Lisa Lampanelli jokes does the world really need?), Gary Dell’abate from the Howard Stern show (since my own show on Sirius ended I don’t have my free subscription, so I’m not up on the latest Ba Ba Booey in-jokes), or Omarosa (apparently Puck from the 2003 season of MTV’s Real World wasn’t available). I got paired up with George Takei.

Are you kidding? Jackpot! Everybody loves George Takei! And talk about some easy targets for comedy: Japanese, gay, “Star Trek”… If you can’t write a few roast jokes for a gay Japanese Star Fleet navigator, you’re in the wrong business.

The show went great. Very funny stuff from Tom Cotter, Jim David, Cory Kahaney, and Gilbert Gottfried. My contribution to the festivities went well, and all had a good time.

George Takei was funny, charming, and gracious. His longtime companion, (now his, well, husband? Married partner? Mr. Takei?) Brad Altman, was equally charming and gracious.

Watching George and Brad together that night, it was hard to see how they were a threat to the institution of marriage. Oh, the institution is in trouble alright. Welfare policies that give young, poor women a financial incentive not to marry the father of their children (and, in turn, give the fathers an excuse to not take responsibility for their children) have destroyed marriage in the inner cities. The societal acceptance of middle-aged upper-middle class women adopting (or having, or surrogating, or whatevering) babies without bothering to include a father/husband in the picture has been a fiasco for marriage.

The glorification of knucklehead celebrities who use marriage as just another publicity stunt for their new movie/CD/reality show (host “Saturday Night Live,” get married, drop by “The View,” get divorced…) hasn’t helped. Neither has no-fault divorce, the all-purpose ripcord for the terminally lazy (because it’s easier to get divorced than to apologize for being such a shmuck).

Our mainstream pop culture doesn’t help. Like reruns of “Friends.” I loved the show, but I’d never let my teenage daughter watch it. Not primarily because of the sex jokes – but because of the way marriage is thrown away as a punch line (everybody on that show was either getting married by mistake, or getting pregnant without getting married, or getting divorced so they could get pregnant with somebody else’s babies, or marrying a baby, or…).

I think a large part of opposition to gay marriage is rooted in a mathematical fallacy: the “fact” that ten percent of the population is gay. There are 300 million Americans. So the concern is that you might be looking at thirty million gays getting married. That’s a lot of gay marriage! The ten percent figure comes from the Kinsey report. But Kinsey was a nut who based a lot of his data on studies of prison populations. The hoosegow in Kinsey’s time, an era of criminalizing homosexuality, by its very nature had a higher percentage of homosexuals than the rest of the world. I’ve lived in New York City my whole life. Even here I’ve always thought that the ten percent number was way high (except when I played Vince Fontaine in the 90’s revival of “Grease” on Broadway – percentage of homosexuals in your average Broadway musical? Ninety two percent. Rama lama lama!).

So let’s say the more accurate figure is five percent. That’s 15 million, as Jim McGreevy would call them, gay Americans. Subtract the very young and the very old. Narrow it down to the gays in their 30s and early 40s – your big marrying years. That’s probably one quarter of our 15, so three or four million. Now, subtract one quarter that isn’t even dating, another quarter that are dating but not seriously involved. Now we’re down to two million. Okay, we’ve got two million gays in committed relationships. How many of them want to actually get married? Maybe half. Now we’re down to one million gays who want to get married. George and Brad are already married, so you can subtract them. That’s just fewer than one million gays who might want to actually get married.

Out of those one million gays, 25 percent will break up over arguments about the wedding plans (The band! The centerpieces!). So it’s really only 750,000 gays. That’s 375,000 gay couples. Mostly in LA and NY. And Provincetown. In a nation of 300 million.

What will happen to those gay married couples? Let’s face it, half of them will get divorced just like everybody else. After the initial novelty wears off, the numbers of new gay marriages will probably drop. The whole thing will eventually (you’ll pardon the expression) blow over.

Conservatives: go libertarian on this one! Let the states decide, call it something else: union, partnership, really really going steady. And to George and Brad, much happiness and a belated “mazel tov” from Dick Cheney and me.