Democracy diet.

In Fat Actress, Kirstie Alley lashes out at Hollywood s obsession with thinness. As a self-proclaimed fat actress, she knows whereof she speaks. Her show is a sweet and sometimes sour revenge. She serves it up cold.

Her audience, which is never going to be too rich, seems to be going for the too thin option, and can't take its eyes off her and how large she has gotten. Viewers are grimly invested in her weight loss.

Nielsen has not yet released any figures on the gender breakout of the declining viewership of Fat Actress, but I suspect a lot of desperate housewives are tuning in. Kirstie Alley-watching has replaced Oprah-watching since, to the secret disappointment of many, Oprah's weight seems to have stabilized. Dr. Phil, who coached Oprah in her Texas Meat Disparagement Trial, was rewarded for his success with his own bossy, annoying show, another entrant in the Dieting Industrial Complex. I never thought I'd miss Richard Simmons.

The zaftig Ms. Alley's show is the latest subset of the dieting-as-acting school. In the movies, it all started when Robert De Niro gained weight for his role as Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull. Tom Hanks lost weight for his Oscar-winning part as a person with AIDS in Philadelphia and then as the marooned Federal Express man in Cast Away. Charlize Theron gained weight and lost the makeup for her performance as serial killer Aileen Wuornos in Monster. The already thin Daniel Day-Lewis is even thinner as Jack in The Ballad of Jack and Rose. Renee Zellweger yo-yoed up and down for the role of the insipid Bridget Jones I and II. Weight Watchers is the new method acting. Fergie is a fat-free Uta Hagen-dazs.

A new entree on the very full menu of weight loss books, Mireille Guiliano's bestselling French Women Don't Get Fat, is une autre bee-otch slap in the Franco-American wars. She impugns plus-size American women when she wearily opines that French women "have learned to manage and gratify their senses. They eat with all five of their senses." No mention of the impact that has had on table settings or manners.

On the eve of 2005, George Bush said that his New Year's resolution was--no, not ending the war and bringing the troops home, silly--to lose a few pounds and stay away from sugar! His "No Fat Child Left Behind Federal Nutritional Guidelines," however, are more daunting than helpful--fresh selections from the five vegetable subgroups, a variety of whole grains, and vigorous sixty-minute workouts. I read the guidelines and wanted a big grab bag of Cheetos.

The Bush doctrine of cutting taxes to reduce revenue, with the goal of reducing the size and number of services offered by government, is what is known in the conservative mainstream as "starving the beast."

When a beast is starved, it gets cranky and lashes out. Kirstie Alley has. That, more than her weight loss, is what is so fascinating. I'm hoping the beast we call democracy snaps back at its tormentors and takes back the zoo.

Kate "at my fighting weight" Clinton is a humorist.