Published: Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Margaret Cho includes everything from her hatred of President George Bush to gay rights to her mother in her comedy act. She is on the road for her Beautiful tour, which will stop in Tampa this month. She talked to the Oracle about her VH1 reality series, The Cho Show (which she calls a sitcom with real people), other upcoming projects and her fear of Republican vice presidential candidate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

The Oracle: You talk about everything from sexuality to politics to religion in your shows. Are there any subjects you won’t talk about?
Margaret Cho: I don’t think so. I don’t want to be boring. I talk about things that are interesting and important to me and that I am passionate about. Sex, religion and politics — I have a lot of things to say about them. It’s about keeping it interesting for myself and also to give something that is of value to an audience. I don’t think I have any taboos or anything like that.

O: You are known for your dislike of the Republican party and your support of Sen. Barack Obama. What do you think of this election so far?
MC: I think Sarah Palin is the worst thing to happen to America. I am so terrified. At first I thought it was really stupid that the Republican party was trying to pander to the voters who were disillusioned, who wanted Hillary (Clinton) to be president, but I realize it is much, much worse than that.

Here is a woman who wants to set women back into the stone age. I mean you might as well not let women vote, because her message is so anti-female, anti-woman. She wants to outlaw abortion even in cases of rape and incest. She is forcing her child to have a child to prove a political point. That’s child abuse. That’s wrong.

I attended the Democratic National Convention and I came out of it so excited about our future and so excited about Obama as president. And right now I am terrified and really concerned.

O: What is the Two Sisters project?
MC: It a is film that I directed and it will be on ABC Family at some point. And it stars Yunjin Kim, Tamlyn Tomita and Kal Penn. I wanted to do a film with all Asian-Americans and I wanted to do a story about belly dancing, which has been a hobby and passion of mine.

O: You are doing all these projects and comedy. What are your plans for the future?
MC: I want to do another season of The Cho Show, which is on VH1 right now and I really love it. I am doing a pilot for Lifetime and it’s called Drop Dead Diva. It’s a comedy-drama. So I will be doing that for the rest of the year and touring.

O: You talked about The Cho Show. Why did you decide to do a reality show?
MC: It’s actually not. It’s pretty scripted. I wrote scripts for it, because I think reality is too hard because you can burn that many hours of film. I wanted to have a show that was about my family and instead of using actors, I wanted to use my own family. It’s more like a sitcom starring real people.

The Beautiful tour’s Tampa show starts at 8 p.m. on Sept. 25 at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center. The Cho Show airs Thursday at 11 p.m. on VH1.