Rosie O’Donnell calls him a gay Nazi. The Toronto Star calls him the Hunter S. Thompson of snark. Perez Hilton calls him his mentor.

We call him just another guy who hates bush.

Big Head DC recently caught up with legendary NYC columnist Michael Musto as he prepares to embark on a tour of Washington, DC to promote his new book La Dolce Musto, a gathering of his greatest hits from his popular Village Voice column over the past twenty years. Watch, love and learn, kids:

BHR: People probably best know you as the prince of celebrity pop culture, but sometimes you have Washington-focused items. Have you ever thought about leaving NYC to come here to gossip?

MM: Ah, there’s no way that’s gonna happen (laughs). I only can exist in New York, really. I know that there’s been gossips who’ve come out of DC to New York – and maybe did better in DC – but New York is just the milieu that’s right for me. I can’t drive. I don’t drive at all. I’m completely hopeless in any place other than New York City.

BHR: In your book, you recall an interesting time at the one of the Reagan inaugural balls. Have you been to any Presidential balls since?

MM: No. I was really a fish out of water in that case… It was the second batch of Reagan inaugural balls that I went to, I went to one of them, and I describe it as one of the eight circles of hell. I just didn’t belong. I had on a ratty rented tuxedo, you know, I was the only non-Republican in the room. I was trying to stuff myself on the trail mix. I think they called it shuttle mix. Yeah, I went running back to New York.

BHR: So you don’t feel comfortable here?

MM: Well, when I’ve gone there for nightlife jaunts, I’ve felt very comfortable. I’ve had a great time.

BHR: Mary Cheney has been in the news recently because of her pregnancy. Love her or hate her?

MM: Well, everybody’s always coming down on her, but I think it must be really difficult to be Mary Cheney. You know, she’s between a rock and a hard place. She’s a lesbian in a family that can’t be thrilled about the fact that she’s a lesbian, and her family has to act like they’re okay with it because she’s their daughter. Yet, they have to advocate public policy that seems to be against her way of life. So, I wouldn’t want to be her… She has to feel kind of like a second-class citizen in her own family. It’s easy to target her as a villain, but she’s in a very unenviable position.

BHR: What about Dick Cheney? Do you think he loves Mary or hates her?

MM: (laughs) I think he’s probably torn between the policies he’s chosen to espouse and the fact that she’s obviously a decent person and she’s his own flesh and blood. The good thing about Mary Cheney is that she holds up a mirror to the Republican Party’s own hypocrisy. And people keep reminding him and asking him how he feels about his daughter. He says it’s irrelevant, but it’s not irrelevant… If your own flesh and blood is a lesbian and has a family, then why shouldn’t she be afforded the same rights as anybody else?

BHR: Does Dick scare you at all?

MM: No, he’s too kind of pathetic and doddering to be that scary – except when he’s hunting.

BHR: You’ve done a lot to promote gay issues in your column. Have you ever worried about being too political in your views, or does the Village Voice not give a damn?

MM: From day one, the Village Voice gave me the go ahead to go as far as I wanted… I’m free to take the ball and run with it, and I’ve never been afraid of going too far. In all these years, I’ve never been sued. And I’ve never been wrong in my gaydar as far as outing celebrities.

I feel that gossip is innately political, especially when you deal with celebrity sexuality. Talking about gay celebrities is a way of being politicized and saying, ‘Look, everybody has something in their closet, and why don’t we all just come out with it?’ From the beginning, I’ve tried to remind everyone of how many people in showbiz and politics are gay. I was doing it at a time when it wasn’t considered cool to do so. I was pretty much vilified for screaming that celebrities should come out of the closet. But the landscape has changed so much now that it’s much more common practice. I think the political effects of outing are now much more visible to people. It’s absurd for people to be homophobes when half of everyone’s idols seem to be gay.

BHR: Speaking of outing people – Anderson Cooper, he gets talked about a lot here because he pays attention to the political issues of the day. What’s his deal?

MM: He lives in a kind of open-door closet. In other words, he lives a semi-out life as a gay man, but he won’t go on the record with it. I’ve written appreciative articles about him saying that I’m a fan, but that it’s kind of absurd that he does this delicate dance where he won’t come out. But mainly I’m mad at the media. They have no qualms about saying that people like David Gest or Clay Aiken are gay. I guess because they’re a little freaky… But when it comes to serious news man…the media seems to want to protect him and not say that he’s gay…

BHR: Now, Keith Olbermann. You appear on his show a lot. What’s your gaydar like when it comes to him

MM: (laughs) Keith is extremely heterosexual. I’m not picking up any gay from him at all…

BHR: Do you think he really cares about politics?

MM: Yeah, he really does. He’s still passionate about sports, but I think he really found his niche with the politics. He really is passionate and burns his rage at the Bush Administration. He’s the most profound threat there is, not only to Bush, but also to FOX News channel and Bill O’Reilly. They’re all running scared; they’re all very threatened of him.

BHR: Perez Hilton was a co-host at your book party in NYC. Isn’t he kind of a copycat of you? How’d you let him get so famous?

MM: (laughs) I think he takes some of the things I stand for and takes it to a whole different medium and does it his own way. I don’t think he’s a copycat. There’s room for all of us… People think the gossip community is just a bunch of backstabbers, you know, people hating each other and killing each other for the next item. It’s actually a pretty cool community of people who help each other out. We all understand how difficult it is to be a gossip columnist.

BHR: Explain that a little bit. Why is it difficult?

MM: Because there’s so much competition for information, I mean, especially with the Internet. Everyone has a blog, everyone has a site, everyone has a column. And there are fewer limits than there used to be on what can be published when it comes to celebrity reporting. So, I think we all kind of have a kind of compassion for each other, knowing how difficult it is in the cutthroat world of gossip. So we all kind of stick up for each other.

BHR: Do you get a lot of hatred pointed at you?

MM: I used to get hatred, but now that the landscape is changing, I get more respect. Once you’ve been around for as long as I have, people start to realize that you’re not going away… Now people either call me legendary or obsolete. So, I prefer legendary.

BHR: Have you seen Courtney Cox’s new show on fx, Dirt?

MM: Yeah, I thought it was pretty lame. To me, it is dabbling in really ancient stereotypes about how cutthroat the world of tabloid reporting is… Maybe it’ll get better. I’m looking forward to seeing Jennifer Aniston on it.

BHR: What’s the latest political gossip that you haven’t been able to fit into one of your columns.

MM: (laughs) …Things tend to pop out. From McGreevey to Foley to Kenny Mehlman. These stories tend to rise to the surface much faster now than they used to. So there’s less work for me to do.

BHR: Do you think Hillary is going to be the next President?

MM: Oh, Lord, I just (laughs) feel like now is an opportunity for the Democrats to totally be handed the Presidency on a platter, if we come up with the right candidate… And who are we coming up with? The first woman President. I don’t find that that’s realistic, as much as I’d love to see a woman candidate. I think now is when we should play it safer and go for a more surefire candidate…

BHR: If you were stuck on a deserted island, no way to get out, and could only choose between being stranded with Hillary Clinton and Lindsay Lohan, who would it be?

MM: Oh, definitely Lindsay Lohan. First of all, she’d bring a nice bottle of wine with her, I’m sure. With Hillary, every five minutes she’d be changing her views, depending on what would be the best politically for her at the moment. After a couple of cocktails, I’m sure Lindsay would spill her guts out, and be a really fun party playmate.

BHR: But after all her stories were told, then what would keep you occupied?

MM: Um, trying to revive her.

BHR: Thanks Michael…see you soon!