Via JWF, a late-evening palate cleanser from your resident eeyoreblogger to send you to bed in a bad mood. I was searching for a joke here but couldn’t think of a precise analog for Hanoi Jane. “Co-starring Rosie O’Donnell as Mamie Eisenhower”? That doesn’t work; hate Rosie all you want, but she never posed for pics sitting on enemy guns. “Co-starring Bill Ayers as the Gipper”? Nah, that’s actually not fair to Fonda. She may have posed for the pics but she never tried to blow anyone up. Ah well. This ingenious bit of stuntcasting makes me as excited to see the movie as any roundhouse kick to the groin possibly could. Well played, Lee Daniels.

I’m sure it’ll be a rich, fair, thoughtful portrayal. Can’t wait for the kuh-ray-zee seance scene.

In the midst of recruiting an all-star ensemble for his long-gestating passion project “The Butler,” director Lee Daniels has tapped Jane Fonda to play Nancy Reagan.

Based on a Washington Post report by Wil Haygood, pic follows Eugene Allen, the White House butler whose career started with Harry Truman in 1952 and ended in 1986 with Ronald Reagan…

Daniels, who is directing from a script he co-wrote with Danny Strong, is in the process of finalizing financing for the pic, which has no distributor onboard yet. Pamela Williams will produce through Laura Ziskin Prods. along with Hilary Shor.

How about Vanessa Redgrave as Nancy Reagan instead? Michael Moore as Dick Cheney? C’mon, there has to be an apposite analogy here. And no, they can’t go out and get Streep. Granted, she did okay with her first conservative-icon role, but I’m pretty sure she’s beyond their budget.