Wheels within wheels:

It’s been two and a half years since the last episode of Fox’s thriller television series “24,” but the show is evidently still fresh on liberal comedienne and former “24″ star Janeane Garofalo’s mind.

In an appearance on the January 3 episode of the “Going Off Track” podcast, Garofalo said show creator and executive producer Joel Surnow picked certain cast members to make liberals — particularly Hillary Clinton — look bad.

“That was actually a joke I think Joel Surnow was trying to plant,” Garofalo said. “He hated my politics and Air America. He’s a real right-winger. He actually worked with the Republican Party producing propaganda campaigns with them.”

So Garofalo is saying that she was deliberately hired by a television producer to make the far left look insane? And not just by someone employed by MSNBC, CNN or Fox News? She just might be onto something here — although she similarly believed that  she was being used and abused by another division of the TV networks nearly a decade ago, as the Washington Post noted in 2003:

Janeane Garofalo says she knows why Fox, CNN, MSNBC and “Good Morning America” have booked her to argue against war with Iraq.

“They have actors on so they can marginalize the movement,” the stand-up comic says. “It’s much easier to toss it off as some bizarre, unintelligent special-interest group. If you’re an actor who is pro-war, you’re a hero. If you’re an actor who’s against the war, you’re suspect. You must have a weird angle or you just hate George Bush.”

Ride that Mobius loop — ride it forever! (Just be prepared for the stress all that self-generated turbulence puts on the pilot.)

Update: Surnow responds to Garofolo’s rant:

Surnow responded with class, not venom, though one wouldn’t blame him for skipping her name the next time he’s casting a TV series or film project.

“I hired Janeane Garofolo on 24 not because of any political agenda. I had none. I hired her because she’s an extremely talented actress who I liked in everything I had ever seen her in.”

Garofolo is feverishly pondering the meaning of the hidden subtext in Surnow’s statement. I’m sure it must have something to do with the inner workings of his limbic brain.