Joel Surnow, Rush Limbaugh Defend '24' From Janeane Garofalo
"Don’t underestimate a right-winger, especially with power and money. They will use any platform," the actress says about the creator of "24."
Rush Limbaugh and 24 creator Joel Surnow on Monday were responding to attacks leveled by actress-activist Janeane Garofalo, who starred in the 2009 season of Fox's hit TV show and said recently that Surnow used 24 to advance a conservative agenda and malign liberals.
Surnow, though, told The Hollywood Reporter on Monday: "I hired Janeane Garofolo on 24 not because of any political agenda. I had none. I hired her because she's an extremely talented actress who I liked in everything I had ever seen her in."
Garofalo made her remarks in a Jan. 3 podcast, where she also said Limbaugh used to visit the set of the show, which featured Kiefer Sutherland as terrorist-hunter Jack Bauer, and that the character she played, government agent Janis Gold, was meant to portray liberals as weaklings and that the fictional President Allison Taylor, played by Cherry Jones, was supposed to be a caution against a potentially real-life President Hillary Clinton.
She also accused Surnow of producing “propaganda” for Republicans.
It’s all nonsense, Limbaugh said Monday, though without specifically addressing much of what Garofalo said.
“This is on some podcast that nobody heard and that’s why I’m gonna play it for you here. She is talking about Joel Surnow and me,” Limbaugh said during his nationally syndicated radio show Monday.
Limbaugh then played Garofalo saying the following about Surnow: “He actually worked with the Republican Party producing, like, propaganda campaigns with them. And, actually, Rush Limbaugh and Lynne Cheney would visit the set, and stuff like that. He wanted Cherry Jones to play the president that season as a slam to Hillary. He wanted it to seem unappealing. Unfortunately, the fans loved Cherry Jones as the president -- she was wonderful -- but it was made to frighten you from Hillary. This might sound all like, ‘that’s crazy,’ but don’t underestimate a right-winger, especially with power and money. They will use any platform.”
Garofalo also said during the podcast that Surnow “hated” her progressive politics and Air America, the defunct liberal radio company she used to work for. Surnow, she said, “would also try and play gotcha with me all the time. He would try to wind me up all the time in between takes, and some of the dialogue he had was just shitting on liberals."
“It sounds good and interesting,” Limbaugh said during his radio show Monday, “but she couldn’t be more wrong if she wanted to be. Surnow helped Republicans produce propaganda films? And the casting of Cherry Jones as a female president -- it was not made to alarm people about Hillary. The Cherry Jones character was not dislikable. I just wanted to get this out of the way because these people are not backing away or backing off. In their victory (the reelection of President Barack Obama), they are even angrier and more fit to be tied even than when we win.”
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