Let's have a laugh

Oh, she's upset:

Is the ghost of Sen. Joe McCarthy alive and well in Hollywood? That is certainly on the minds of many outspoken liberals in Tinsel-town these days. The latest conspiracy theory focuses on the just-announced axing by ABC of very vocal anti-Iraq war activist Janeane Garofalo's new sitcom, ''Slice o' Life.''

Though the alphabet network had given Garo-falo and Universal Tele-vision a thumbs up on the show for next season, network execs changed their minds, telling Daily Variety and other industry outlets it was ''the direction of the series story line'' that led to the dumping of ''Slice''--just days before the show's pilot was scheduled to be taped in Vancouver, British Columbia.

A source close to Garofalo tells this column the actress and comedian was furious by the last-minute change and believes it's yet another example ''of a network bowing to the perceived power of the Bush administration. ... Janeane is convinced her politics and all the hate mail the right-wing lobby stirred up during the war is what is behind all this.''

What makes this funny is that it wasn't all that long ago that she was crowing that her anti-war (anti-freedom?) stance was the reason the series was picked up in the first place. Now that's the reason she lost the job. Puh-leez, can we make up our minds here? Sorta like Mike "I cannot tell the truth even if it kills you" Moore bragging about his great change of fortune when Icon Productions opted to finance his next pack of crap, only to also latter change their minds.