Opinion: Now, 2 Obama backers, Bernie Mac and Morgan Freeman,hospitalized
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A bad day for Barack Obama donors.
Morgan Freeman, the iconic voice of God in several films and reliable good-guy co-conspirator of Christian Bale’s Batman in ‘The Dark Knight,’ is in serious condition in a Memphis hospital after a late-night car accident near his home in Mississippi.
The popular Freeman, who is 71, gave the Obama presidential campaign $2,300 on March 8.
And comedian Bernie Mac, popular TV-film funnyman who got a little vocally naughty at a recent Obama fundraiser, is seriously ill with pneumonia in a Chicago hospital.
His wife, Rhonda McCullough, was reportedly at his side. She also backs Obama, having donated $2,300 to the freshman Illinois senator on March 28, according to The Times’ eagle-eyed money man Dan Morain.
But a publicist for the 50-year-old Mac, a Chicago native, says, contrary to internet rumors, Mac is not dead and is responding to treatment unrelated to his past diagnosis of sarcoidosis, an autoimmune disease which has been in remission for three years.
According to our own Elizabeth Snead over at the Dish Rag blog, Freeman lives with his wife Myrna on a 126-acre Mississippi ranch near Charleston, Miss.
An early accident report said an unidentified woman was also in the car with Freeman, who was airlifted more than 100 miles north to Memphis for treatment. Witnesses said he was talking to rescuers as they extricated him from the mangled car, which apparently flew off the highway into a ditch.
Freeman was to undergo surgery today or tomorrow on his broken arm, broken elbow and some shoulder damage.
In July, Mac appeared as an opening act at a Chicago Obama fundraiser. he said he’d been a longtime Obama supporters but then proceeded to draw some jeers from the crowd, who’d each paid $2,300 to see Obama. But they also got some off-color remarks that included menopause, having a black first lady and promiscuity.
Part of one joke began: ‘My little nephew came to me and he said, ‘Uncle, what’s the difference between a hypothetical question and a realistic question?’ Mac said. ‘I said, I don’t know, but I said, ‘Go upstairs and ask your mother if she’d make love to the mailman for $50,000.’’
Shortly after, Obama jokingly told Mac, through the audience, to clean up his act, then quickly added, ‘I’m just messin’ with ya, man.’ Later, a campaign spokeswoman said Obama had told Mac he did not condone the statements and found them inappropriate.
--Andrew Malcolm