Sheryl Crow now says that the whole “one piece of toilet paper” thing was just a joke. I’m going to surprise you – having read the original piece where she proposed the idea, I believe her. Being funny in print is a difficult task best left to the pros like Steyn and Lileks. When amateurs attempt satire, they do so at their peril.

Alas, the damage to Crow and her image has been done. As I took my beloved house pet to the Vet’s this morning, I heard the drive-time DJ’s on three different stations making fun of her. She is now officially a national punch line. The problem with her purported joke was that it was all too believable that an entertainment community member would preach such rubbish. Even if the word gets out that Crow was just jesting, the damage to her brand is irrevocable.

There’s even the chance that the taint will spread to the entire universe of entertaining do-gooders. The next time a Tim Robbins and Sean Penn scream at a rally for Donald Rumsfeld to be prosecuted as a war criminal, their audience won’t know if the actors are playing some sort of gag and will ultimately burble, “Hah! Had you going there, didn’t we?” In short, the entertainment community will no longer enjoy the credibility it once had as a home for sophisticated and mature analysis of global affairs. (Personal not to Sheryl Crow – See? That’s satire.)

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