Michael Richards may or may not be a racist. His rant was at the very least, unfortunate. I know him as an actor, not a comedian. He appeared on a brief competitor to the Saturday Night Show, often in non-speaking roles, and he was very funny, as he was on Seinfeld. If you remember from Seinfeld, most of his humor was in his physical comedy and gibberish expressions, far more than anything he said, and those words were written for him.

Standup comedy has been described, in standup words, as performing in front of an audience "naked from the waist down." Authentic standups such as Jay Leno, Jerry Seinfeld, Drew Carey are established vets in the business. Possibly Michael Richards is out of his league. Or, possibly he had a bad night. A very bad night.

I haven't heard much Lenny Bruce, and didn't find his work engaging. Possibly he deserves some of the plaudits, but he was a sad character and apparently into addictive substances. While sharing some of his weaknesses, Richard Pryor was downright brilliant, using a lot of vulgarity but the charm of his basic personality won over audiences of all shades.

Far more a master of the power of words to hurt, inflame and make us make fools of ourselves is George Carlin. He took a lot of heat over his career for his beatnik/hippie vibe but he has worn well.