I attended her recent concert in Indy (right after the Cleveland stop). She made what I thought was a loving and reverent reference to Jesus. She was on her back and said that Jesus in Heaven "loves everyone". I am a born again evangelical Christian. My understanding of Jesus is that He - as the living son of God - does indeed love everyone. His parting commandment to the disciples was to love one another. He saved the woman caught in adultery from being stoned (she was not punished at all). He forgave the criminal on the cross. His love is boundless. Gaga's reference was meaningful to me as she used the present tense. She didn't say that "Jesus was a man who loved everyone." She references her faith time and again. Gaga mentions God or Jesus in interviews (most recently Larry King), she thanks God for awards and she leads her crew in prayer before each concert. She toured what she called "sacred and holy" Jerusalem last August wearing a large cross. She puts her faith in action. She has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars - perhaps millions - for charities and speaks out for human rights and helping others. I see her as a sister in Christ. She doesn't proselytize yet she has made her faith known many times by words and deeds.

For someone who feeds at the trough of celebrity, you certainly snap that them. It's your rice bowl yet you bite the hand that feeds you. Are you a person of integrity - so above it all, so to speak - or just a bitter guy who hasn't got his 15 minutes? As for Gaga, why bully her? She's raised (much of this out of her pocket) over a half-million dollars for Haiti relief, directing it to medical services on the ground. She's also donated much time to raising money to fight AIDS while promoting safe sex and monogamous loving relationships. We can disagree about her talent (I think she's a brilliant performance artist), but even by your standard, she wasn't one of those looking for - as you put it - a "close-up on Entertainment Tonight before they slink back across to the far side of the velvet rope."

'Teen panel' in Boston - yeah, right. They were obviously hand selected for the health commission. There is no longer an official censor for the City of Boston, but Richard Sinnott would be proud. As for Lady Gaga, I see her as one of the strongest voices for female empowerment in pop culture. She stands for human rights for everyone. Witness her public stands for gay rights, and her courage in calling Obama to task for his 'talking the talk" approach.

The AIG bonuses are a distraction from the real issues, but a useful device for Obama. Bonuses - and certainly not AIG's relatively small bonuses - aren't the real issue. If they were, we'd be talking about Goldman Sachs (and other banks) 2008 bonuses, which were in the billions, not mere hundreds of millions. (Note: GS partners and their families were also Obama's biggest source of campaign funds - nearly $1 million - from people associated with a private business, per OpenSecrets.org). Obama is using the AIG bonus flap to stoke public anger so he can use that to get support in nationalizing the financial sector. And, by focusing on AIG, he's hoping people don't look at billions in bonuses given by banks. Obama hopes his slight of hand isn't noticed. (Another little fact: Geithner and the Feds approved GS and Morgan Stanley becoming banks last year, after he denied Lehman Brothers' request to become a bank.This was an important, though under reported development, that gave GS and Morgan Stanley a very advantageous position, on top of getting bailout funds under TARP ($10 billion) and from AIG ($13 billion.)