"Not Funny?"

I heard Michael Richards' apology today. Pretty good stream of consciousness. He is in checkmate. PC and Seinfeld won't let him go right, and he's dead left. But my schadenfreude finds this liberal dish a piquant flavor. The seriousness with which this is greeted! He is at a Comedy Club and some people aren't listening to him, upstaging him by talking and he does a send up/ role of a hypothetical, historical reaction. I shouldn't even try to compare this to the serious stuff which is accepted as normal: Tony Blair saying that the problem in Iraq is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. That is like the Swiss Guards coming at you with a knife a few hundred years ago and telling you that the problem with the Vatican choir is that there aren't enough high voices. You know how that is going to work out. The Reverend can have a spoon at 20 degrees off vertical in the potatoes on his plate and be posed with hands folded for Thanksgiving grace, and in his complaints say New York didn't fold; so "Hymie town." Cool. But get into a riff when the hood is dissing you in a Comedy Club. Now "This is not Funny." Attention Must Be Paid.