Not that it would matter to the constituency in question. But simply for the record: If you start prattling to me via email or in any other mode of communication about how Whoopi Goldberg’s (no relation) firing from Slim Fast constitutes censorship or anything of the like I will assume you are simply trying to make yourself look silly. One can already hear this buzzing around the web and it’s like a dye-marker for the ridiculous.

The obvious points:

Censorship is what governments do. Refusing to pay a spokeswoman who hurts your business is what businesses do. Slim-Fast is not only a private firm, its president is a die-hard Democrat who despises Bush. Whoopi can still say all of the same things she said to those Democrats that night, she just can’t get paid to hawk weight-loss products by Slim-Fast at the same time. If she — or anybody else — was really concerned about Whoopi’s free speech, they’d want the Democrats to stop “censoring” the videotape in question. I know for a fact that C-Span wants to run it, I heard them say so just the other day. Last, if your heart bleeds for Whoopi, it must also bleed for Anita Bryant, no?