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By Amanda Carpenter

Same old joke

Comedian Janeane Garofalo has taken her jokes about conservative "tea party" protesters being "racists" and "retarded" to the nation's capital.

Miss Garofalo initially made such statements on MSNBC's "The Countdown" with Keith Olbermann in April and reprised her offensive commentary in a comedy skit at the 9:30 Club in Washington on Friday night.

Jeff Poor, a blogger for the conservative media-tracking blog Newsbusters.org, attended and recorded audio of Miss Garafalo's routine and put it online.

"It was just so much easier when we could just call them racists. I just don't know why we can't call them racists or functionally retarded adults," Miss Garafalo told the 9:30 Club audience.

"The functionally retarded adults, the racists - with their cries of, 'I want my country back,' you know what they're really saying is, 'I want my white guy back,' " she sneered. "They apparently had no problem at all for the last eight years of habeas corpus being suspended, the Constitution being [expletive] on, illegal surveillance, lied to on a war or two, two stolen elections - yes, the John Kerry one was stolen too."

Judging from the audience's laughter caught by Mr. Poor's audio recording, the stand-up comic's political punch lines went over much better in Washington than they did in Britain in July when she walked off during a comedy festival after her jokes about airport security checks flopped.

Death-panel ax

Betsy McCaughey, the woman who helped push into the mainstream the claim that Democratic health care bills would subsidize and thus encourage euthanasia consultations, resigned as director of Cantel Medical Corp. after a contentious appearance on Jon Stewart's "The Daily Show."