Lay off the McEvil Empire

I’m suing Jack Daniel’s.

Jack’s gotten me into my fair share of trouble over the years and… I’m suing Jack Daniel’s.

Jack’s gotten me into my fair share of trouble over the years and the bottle doesn’t have a warning label that reads, “Consumption of this product will cause you to behave in an outrageous manner.” Of course, after my first few wild nights with ol’ Jack, you’d think, as a reasonable person, I might figure this out for myself, right? Maybe it would be silly to of me to blame Jack after all.

Apparently, this logic does not apply to fast food.

On July 24 in Bronx Supreme Court, Caesar Barber, 57, became the figurehead of a class action suit filed against McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Kentucky Fried Chicken and Burger King. He says he’s been eating fast food regularly for years because it’s cheap and he’s a not a good cook. He claims to have believed the stuff was healthy until recently.

Most of the publicity in the case centers on McDonald’s because they are the only defendants to talk to the press on the subject.

Barber’s attorney, Samuel Hirsch, claims that “you have to be a rocket scientist” to understand the nutritional data posted in every McDonald’s location. I don’t think so, but I’ll grant him this for the sake of argument.

It really does not take a rocket scientist or even a third-grade education to notice the liquid lard oozing off the quintuple cheeseburger with bacon and humonga-sized fries you’ve just ordered. Failing your notice even of that, the enormity of your buttocks after eating this way for a while might also clue you in.

The choice of poor, diabetic, heart-diseased, two-heart-attacks-having, 272-pound Mr. Barber to act as the figurehead and media spokesperson in this case smacks of media pandering on the part of Hirsch. In every picture I’ve seen of Barber, he looks like a large deer in the headlights.

The guy is obviously no genius. At a press conference, Barber said, “Those people in the advertisements don’t really tell you what’s in the food. It’s all fat, fat and more fat. Now I’m obese.”

Really? He’s been eating the stuff several times a week since the ’50s and he’s just figured this out? I’m so glad he passed this information on to the rest of us.

Don’t get me wrong. I am just as rabidly anti-McDonald’s as the next obnoxious vegan and I am more than willing to discuss actual facts about why they suck so much. This lawsuit has very little to do with actual facts. It’s not beyond the realm of possibility that the suit is about a retired janitor looking to make some cash and a New York attorney looking to make a name for himself. And some cash.

The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a vegan advocacy group, has decided to support this outrage. Of course, they are salivating at the chance to demonize McDonald’s yet again.

McDonald’s did commit an egregious offense against vegetarians by misrepresenting their french fries as vegetarian. In fact, the “fried in 100-percent vegetable oil” fries include beef as an ingredient. For a good laugh, check out their court-ordered apology at www.mcdonalds.com. Look under “press releases.”

That mess is over and done with. They were sued, they lost, they donated $10 million to various Hindu and vegetarian organizations. They took a giant hit in credibility and no vegetarian I know will ever set foot in one of their stores again. That was a legitimate lawsuit.

Comparisons are of course being drawn between this case and that of an elderly woman who sued McDonald’s years ago after she spilled hot coffee on herself. Late night talk shows and urban legend distorted the facts of this case. The coffee was so unbelievably hot that despite wearing jeans she was burned badly enough to require skin grafts. She never even sued until McDonald’s denied her perfectly reasonable request that they cover her medical bills. That was a legitimate lawsuit.

So yeah, I’d put Ronald McDonald right up there with Martha Stewart on my list of people I’d like to have over for dinner. I wouldn’t go into a McDonald’s for water after three days in the desert.

But any rational human being who claims that a restaurant is at fault for their obesity needs to have his big fat head examined.

For more facts about this unbelievable case, check out msnbc.com and search for “Caesar Barber.” Melissa Meinzer can be reached at petitefemflower@hotmail.com.