By JEANNETTE CATSOULIS

Equal parts inspired clown, committed advocate and ferocious
Republican-baiter, the comedian Margaret Cho explains why she chose
"Assassin"
as the title of her latest tour. "I wanted a name that would drive the right
crazy," chortles the Korean-American, whose very existence - she is also
outspokenly liberal, feminist and bisexual - is probably sufficient to
accomplish that particular goal.

"Margaret Cho: The Assassin Tour" is a live taping of Ms. Cho's stand-up
performance on May 14 at the Warner Theater in Washington. With the White
House just three blocks away, she's not pulling any punches: "Bush is no
Hitler. He would be if he applied himself," she opines, as her audience
roars in approval.

While Ms. Cho's fan base is primarily gay and lesbian, with much of her
material addressing homophobia and gay rights, her attacks on injustice and
hypocrisy are universal. Railing against the ubiquity of Viagra versus the
unavailability of the morning-after pill ("I want it with my check at
dinner!"), and turning an astute eye on the Martha Stewart conviction
("America just hates women who are successful and not nice about it"), Ms.
Cho seeks out the bruises on American culture and gleefully applies
pressure.

Though specializing in confrontational, caustic and often raunchy humor,
Ms. Cho has a relaxed and playful stage presence. She's not a screamer, or a
pacer, or a frantic gesticulator; her movements are economical and gentle,
and she waits for her facial expressions to sink in. Her comic timing, honed
after decades of public performance, is impeccable. Whether discussing the
tedium of England ("where white people begin the whitening process") or the
Schwarzenegger governorship ("we didn't get punk'd"), her manner is
hey-girlfriend chatty.
And while there is a certain amount of preaching to the liberal choir, with
predictable attacks on Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter, many of the jokes have
a head-snapping cleverness. "Being gay is not outrageous," she declares,
"and if you think it is, you're gay!"

Ms. Cho sees her minority status as the ultimate freedom to express. Having
"a membership in every club," she says, allows her to say whatever is on her
mind, and that sometimes involves a head-on collision between social
relevance and good taste. (A Terry Schiavo impersonation, for instance,
walks this line brilliantly.) But though Ms.
Cho's most lethal jokes are reserved for inequality in all its forms, it
would be a shame if the politics eclipsed the belly laughs. Anyone who can
compare Reagan's funeral to "Weekend at Bernie's" and John Kerry to an Ent,
one of Tolkien's talking trees, deserves an audience on both sides of the
aisle.