Ask a Black Dude: meet comedian Dave Chappelle.

• Author: Zaino, Nick A., III

Bad politics makes for good laughs. Just ask Dave Chappelle, the comedian who is starting his second season in January on Comedy Central with Chappelle's Show. "As a citizen, I'm freaked out, he says. "As a comedian, it's fertile."

Live, he's not shy about discussing the war in Iraq. At an April appearance in Boston on his "Blackzilla" tour he mentioned that he was against the war, giving rise to boos and cheers from the audience. He compared the hunt for weapons of mass destruction to a shaky drug bust. "Saddam Hussein was found dead with a gun and some crack," he said, in the voice of a news anchor.

Onstage, Chappelle is confident and conversational, moving easily from events of the day to more raunchy material and back again.

Chappelle downplays his politics, though. "When I do my act, I'm not trying to ever be political," he says. "But if there's something funny that happens, and I have a point of view about it, I'll do it. But it's not to be preachy. There's not a serious agenda behind it."

Chappelle knew audiences were sensitive to the topic of the war, and he felt some entertainers were hesitant to bring it up. But he thought it would be foolish to ignore it.

"As a comic, it's like, this is all anybody's thinking about," he says. "Why wouldn't I say something? They're watching the same bullshit I'm watching. Some people might feel the same way I feel. It's terrible. I don't think anyone was enthusiastic about the war except, like, in the White House."

Hearing then-Press Secretary Ari Fleischer denouncing Bill Maher's supposed unpatriotic comments was a scary moment, he says. When you can lose your job for exercising your constitutional rights, that's cause for concern, he adds.

He criticizes entertainment for being "less opinionated" than it used to be. "Now everything is so corporate," he says. "There's freedom of speech that'll protect you under the law. But who's to say I wouldn't lose my job if I said the wrong thing. Good lord, I've got a Coke commercial to protect."

He also sees more than a little hypocrisy on the part of rightwing radio hosts who trashed celebrities speaking out against the war but then applauded the celebrity who just won the governor's seat in California.

"Bill O'Reilly was bashing Alec Baldwin: 'Who's this guy? He's an actor. Why would anybody listen to his opinion?' " says Chappelle. But Schwarzenegger got a pass. "Now it's OK to have an opinion? Can I have an opinion or not?"

He conveys his opinions every...