Roseanne Barr: I'm Like Totally More Intelligent Than President Bush

Change font size:  A |  A

Actress/comedian Roseanne Barr, who claims to be a psychic (“I channel the higher mind, the higher universal mind”), used the made-up word “overcomeable” and employed teenage phrases such as “like” and “totally,” insisted on Monday night's Jimmy Kimmel Live on ABC that she would win a battle of intelligence with President Bush. Barr recounted how she's “going around telling jokes about our country and our people and the world and how screwed up everything is. And I just basically bitch.” She soon maintained about Bush: "I could totally win him in a mind contest." Barr, the star of the mid-1980s to early 1990s ABC sit-com Roseanne, elaborated: “Like if it was like a psychic thing and he was like, okay Rosanne, bring your best powers against my best powers, even though he's like totally world-wide connected, and I'm not so world-wide, I could so totally still win on account of like being female, being a grandmother and like, you know, being intelligent. I could totally win."

Barr, who made the appearance to plug a new DVD of the first season of the Roseanne sit-com, boasted: “I have been psychic since I was very young, about three-years-old. Whenever I touch someone, I pick up all their vibes and stuff. So that's why I don't like to shake hands or touch people because I see like, you know, them dying in horrible car wrecks and stuff like that and it's depressing." Apparently, that was just a joke. (Full transcript follows.)

Video excerpt: Real or Windows Media

From Barr's appearance on the Monday night, October 17 Jimmy Kimmel Live on ABC, which usually really airs early the next morning, at 12:07am EDT/PDT, but because of Monday Night Football, was pushed back to past 1:30am EDT and 12:30am CDT:

Jimmy Kimmel: "Are you still going around the country, are you still talking about the President and politics and that sort of thing?"

Roseanne Barr: "Well, I was doing standup around the President, you know, on election day when I went with Michael Moore to all those colleges. You know and that's why I came here to do stand-up. That's kind of like what I'm still doing, going around telling jokes about our country and our people and the world and how screwed up everything is. And I just basically bitch. I'm really good at it."

Kimmel: "Do you think it helps? Do you think it helps at all?"

Barr: "I think it really helps to laugh at stuff because then it doesn't seem like so overcomeable. Do you know what I mean? You got to laugh it into scorn and like move on. Because I think when people laugh at stuff, you can, once it's a laughing stock, it changes the whole chemistry of it I think."

Kimmel: "It does. We laugh and it and we decide not to do anything about it."

Barr: "Well, you think that's true?"

Kimmel: "Yeah. I don't think we laugh at the scorn, I think we laugh until like [sighs] 'okay, what's next? We got our-'"

Barr: "I think that if you like kind of make fun of it in the way that you're kind of an idiot if you don't do something, then it will work."

Kimmel: "You think so?"

Barr: "Yeah, absolutely."

Kimmel: "I don't know. I don't know."

Barr: "I do."

Kimmel: "I think President Bush has decided certain things and I don't think there's any convincing him. Just like other people, just like, maybe you've decided things and he probably couldn't convince you of anything."

Barr: "I could totally win him in a mind contest."

Kimmel: "You think so?"

Barr: "I could totally win out on him."

Kimmel: "In a what? In a mind-"

Barr: "In a mind contest."

Kimmel: "Really? Well, I'd love to see that happen. That would be the greatest-"

Barr: "Like if it was like a psychic thing and he was like, okay Rosanne, bring your best powers against my best powers, even though he's like totally world-wide connected, and I'm not so world-wide, I could so totally still win on account of like being female, being a grandmother and like, you know, being intelligent. I could totally win."

Kimmel: "I'd love to see that." [applause]

Barr soon added:

"I channel the higher mind, the higher universal mind. And it comes through me with the answer. And I have to say it's not from me, it's threw through me. So I don't think people should get mad at me."

Kimmel: "What percentage of the time are you right?"

Barr: "I am one hundred percent correct at all times."

Following an ad break:

Barr: "I have been psychic since I was very young, about three-years-old. Whenever I touch someone, I pick up all their vibes and stuff. So that's why I don't like to shake hands or touch people because I see like, you know, them dying in horrible car wrecks and stuff like that and it's depressing."

Barr conceded she was just kidding about seeing people die in car wrecks.