Joan Rivers, Republican
I thought Joan Rivers was a funny comedienne, outrageous and bold. But I can’t say I followed her career very closely, or her life.
So I was surprised to read, in this warm tribute written by her friend Peggy Noonan, that Rivers had long been a staunch Republican:
She was completely open and immediately accessible. She had the warmth of a person who found others keenly and genuinely interesting. It was also the warmth of a person with no boundaries: She wanted to know everything about you and would tell you a great deal about herself, right away. She had no edit function, which in part allowed her gift. She would tell you what she thought. She loved to shock, not only an audience but a friend. I think from the beginning life startled her, and she enjoyed startling you. You only asked her advice or opinion if you wanted an honest reply…
We met and became friends in 1992, but the story I always remember when I think of her took place in June 2004. Ronald Reagan had just died, and his remains were being flown from California to Washington, where he would lay in state at the U.S. Capitol. A group of his friends were invited to the Capitol to take part in the formal receiving of his remains, and to say goodbye. Joan was there, as a great friend and supporter of the Reagans…
…[Describing a recent meeting with Rivers] She was hilarious that day on the subject of Barack and Michelle Obama, whom she did not like. (I almost didn’t write that but decided if Joan were here she’d say, “Say I didn’t like Obama!”)
She was a Republican, always a surprising thing in show business, and in a New Yorker, but she was one because, as she would tell you, she worked hard, made her money with great effort, and didn’t feel her profits should be unduly taxed. She once said in an interview that if you have 19 children she will pay for the first four but no more. Mostly she just couldn’t tolerate cant and didn’t respond well to political manipulation. She believed in a strong defense because she was a grown-up and understood the world to be a tough house. She loved Margaret Thatcher, who said what Joan believed: The facts of life are conservative. She didn’t do a lot of politics in her shows””politics divides an audience””but she thought a lot about it and talked about it.
This is very surprising to me, for the very reason that Noonan states: Rivers was in show business and a New Yorker. It’s surprising for another reason, of course: she was in show business and a New Yorker and a Jewish woman. But stranger things have happened.
I wish Rivers had done that “hilarious” comedy bit about Barack and Michelle Obama in public; I would have loved to have seen it. But I think I understand why she didn’t put politics into her act. She did speak up recently about Israel and Palestine, though, in her usual forthright manner.
And when I say “forthright,” that’s an understatement:
Not a shy lady, was she? “I’ll take over the PR”—now, that would have been an interesting proposition.
RIP.
I noticed that in the previous version of this post, which was posted a couple of hours ago, comments didn’t work for some reason. So I’ve re-posted it, and they should be working now.
This comment is a test.
Good for Joan. She gets agitated, but does a good job of making the points that have to made in this argument.
Wish I could do as well. I get overwhelmingly angry when this comes up. I used to sputter and turn red, and that didn’t give me much credibility. Now I just leave the room.
A very funny woman. An excellent business woman. And a Republican. What’s not to like?
She had made herself into an icon by sheer dint of hard work and talent in spite of some difficult setbacks. She is a role model for entrepreneurism, especially for women.
Our loss, Heaven’s gain. RIP, Joan.
SO great to hear her express herself in support of what she believes in without PC krap, refreshing actually.
So sorry too that we have lost her due to medical misadventure. She walked into that clinic & left on life support, pathetic. I heard she got the same stuff as Michael jackson, propofol & they are looking to see if she was overdosed. You would think the dose of that would be decreased since these kinds of meds can behave uniquely with seniors. And you have to wonder if her appearance (not exactly a frail senior) but a bold & brassy dame made the doc discount her
81 years? Notice too in the video her voice is raspy,
it must require alot of vocal ump to deliver effective stand up & she had a boatload of commitments upcoming. I saw where she was going to the UK & the schedule they showed seemed to have her performing virtually every night!
Coming from a medical background myself I have always remembered the serious advice of a clinical instructor to us 19 yr old, wanna be nurses, “Never let anybody put you to sleep unless you are in a hospital because anesthesia is that dangerous.”
But even the notion of “Palestinians” a fraud.
Arafat didn’t buy into it.
They ALL consider themselves A R A B S.
Thought experiment: Israel is gone; Palestine is to the sea. What next?
Palestine would immediately dissolve back into (trans) Jordan. (The current monarchy would be dissolved, of course.)
Ultimately, the Muslim solution is a Zero State solution, two are to become none.
Araby is merely to become bigger.
Actually, I never cared much for Joan Rivers as a performer and comedian.
To be fair, I don’t really care much for most stand up comedy these days. I think Cosby was perhaps the last one I really enjoyed.
It is nice to learn more about her as a person.
“She had no edit function . . .”
That, I believe, is why I so enjoyed her humor. Yes, she could cut someone down with very unkind remarks; but, she also cut herself down too. She considered herself to be fair game along with everyone else.
I loved her one comment once where she said that she wished she had a twin so that she could see how she might have actually aged! Gotta love it!
She belongs up there with the likes of Lucille Ball and Phyllis Diller.
And, now, with this new knowledge (new to me anyway) that she had such intelligent political viewpoints make me love her all the more.
I’ll forever remember one of last public remarks where a reporter asked her if the US would have its first gay president or female president; and without hesitation Joan said, “what do you mean? we already have gay Barry and Michelle is a tranny” or something to that effect. Witty to the end!
Agree with other commenters that it was to her credit that she was as much a target of her own humor as others were.
Her recent off the cuff comments on Palestine were quite cogent. No wasted words. For all the words she spoke in public without a teleprompter, it is amazing how few “umms..ahs” and poorly phrased sentences she had. Are Harry Reid or Joe Biden going to chime in about how articulate she was? 🙂
RIP, Joan. She was thankfully as far away from PC as you could get. Supposedly at an event also attended by supermodel Heidi Klum she said, “The last time there was a German this hot they were putting Jews in the ovens.”
Oldflyer, Cosby has become such an icon and “spokesman” that people have forgotten what a brilliant comedian he has been. I remember when he first emerged in the ’60s the sales of his comedy albums rivaled those of the Beatles.
A couple of years ago I saw him on a late-night talk show. He was telling a story about nothing really, something about he and his wife travelling to some dinner but he had me in stitches.
“…where he would lay in state…”
Peggy Noonan actually wrote that? If so, the Crusade for Correct Usage of Lie and Lay may as well admit utter defeat.
lie, lay, lain
not All of us have forgotten. 😉
Another little note about Joanie: she was a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Barnard College, Class of 1954. smart cookie. (Note that this was before the era of Participation Trophies and the dumbed-down SATs.)
Here’s another great video of her giving them hell about the Paleos: http://preview.tinyurl.com/muqyxfc
I have been surprised at just how much I have been affected by Joan River’s passing. She’s a voice, a presence that has been there all my adult life and her silence is deafening. I am so sorry that she was unable to make her planned trip to Israel. That would have been an Event.
I was thinking the day after she died one of the things I really like about her was she left politics out of her act. I rapidly lose interest in comics who engage in political jokes, because almost none of them can do it without letting their own views known. It’s rare nowadays to hear a comedian omit politics from their act – everyone is a political scientist.
Comedians like John Stewart make me cringe. Making fun of your political enemies 5 days a week doesn’t take any iimagination or talent.
I will miss her. She could rattle off some outrageous stuff when she was on a roll.
Southpaw…
Jon Stewart (born Jonathan Stuart Leibowitz) is just pandering to his base, that’s all.
Based upon his commentary, he’s either atheistic or agnostic. If I had to put a name on his religion it would be Barry’sm. King Put can do no wrong for Jon.
He certainly has a cavalier attitude towards Islamism
IIRC, he spent a serious amount of time in Iran recently. I don’t expect to get any straight answers about that pilgrimage. (Carrying notes from Valerie girl?)
I have a hard time believing that such a high profile, politicized, American Jew would have easy doings in Iran — unless the White House gave him a special, super-duper hall pass.
And it’s a pretty good bet that Jon finds it now impossible to launch barbs at Tehran without hurting those near and dear to him — that are still under the mullah’s thumbs.
I don’t think that he thought twice about being put in such a compromising position. That’s just how bright he really is.
I suspect that it never dawned on him that the mullahs were conducting a media operation on his psyche. I would pronounce it a total success, BTW.