Hey, Ain't That Racist? Lady GaGa Does Al Jolson ... Leftist Establishment is Down With That!

I've admired Lady GaGa quite a bit. She's extremely hot, in an unordinary way. But she's crossed a line of decency with her new blackface gig, on the cover of the fall issue of V Magazine:

Semi-nude images from the photo-shoot are here.

When entertainers in the early 20th century donned blackface, these artistic representations were soon condemned as racist stereotypes. Al Jolson's images are perhaps most famous; his scenes as a blackface entertainer in The Jazz Singer (1927) are widely acknowledged as patently racist today:

Recall Jane Hamsher, in a 2006 essay at Huffington Post, argued that Senator Joseph Lieberman had been "an integral part of the GOP's bully machine for the past six years ..." Hamsher illustrated the post with this awful blackface of Lieberman below, which was promptly removed amid the understandable outcry (complete with a feigned apology from "Hammering" Jane):

So what's up with Lady GaGa? Have we come full-circle and Birth of a Nation iconography is back as hot glam-fashion in the Hollywood-New York media-cultural complex?

The V Magazine piece argues that GaGa "pushes the outer limits of the avant-garde ..." And one celebrity gossip page quipped of GaGa's getup, "She wants to know if anyone still thinks that joke’s funny. ‘Cause I sure as hell do!"

Another gossip page jokes about GaGa's pubic hair (symbolically represented in the photographs), and one commenter finally asks, "Why is she in blackface? Is that what the kids consider cool these days. I'm just asking ..." But the thread gets its share of racial humor: "LOVE her pearly whites!!!!"

No word on the blackface gig from Perez Hilton, Lady GaGa's biggest Hollywood fan-boy (and fat-boy tag-along GaGa groupie). Of course, Hilton's cool with Kanye West's racist power grab at the video music awards last week, and he puts down rumors that GaGa's tour with Kanye was dumped: "Not Cancelled! Kanye/GaGa Tour Still Happening!" It turns out that GaGa's Al Jolson resurrection and Kanye's race-baiting don't rate up there with Carrie Prejean's opinion that marriage is for men and women. Nope, that's bigotry!! Remember Perez Hilton's total disbelief, with illustrations, when Ms. Prejean actually exercized her rights: "Carrie Prejean IS Suing The Miss California Organization!":

That's pretty much the leftist double-standard in action.

Now to be clear, as I said, I like Lady GaGa. I genuinely appreciate her oeuvre, and of course I think she's a sexual knockout.

But hey, aren't we having this big debate over racism in America? We're hearing all about the "racists" who're attacking President Obama from the likes of Jimmy Carter and Maureen Dowd. You know, remember how Joe Wilson's racist for suggesting that Obama's a liar (never mind that Obama's really a liar)? All the lefties are up in arms! Jim Crow is back!

But, ah, isn't Lady GaGa's Al Jolson schtick kinda Jim Crow-ish, you think?

Better not tell the MSM. They might attack me as, well, racist!