Bette Midler Offers to Buy Occupy Wall St. Protesters...Porta-Potties?

As the new occupants of Zuccotti Park -- and more pointedly, innocent bystandards -- are plagued by increasingly problematic hygiene issues, one woman, Bette Midler, is coming to the rescue...or is at least offering to buy the protesters much needed porta-potties.

Yes. "The Divine Miss M" announced to Joy Beharon Tuesday that she would purchase portable toilets for the occupiers, as she is happy to see young activists, “saying things that have to be said.”

Mediaite adds:

The toilet discussion came about because of protests from the lower Manhattan community that the protesters are sullying the place up. When Behar brought the issue up, Midler suggested the families “send some down because toilets are cheap, porta-potties are cheap.” So cheap, in fact, that she offered to send them down herself– and tried to get Behar to go halfsies on the donation (Behar refused to be involved in any such plot).

On a serious note, Midler commented that, having lived through the protests of the 1960s, which, for her generation, “was just something that you did,” it was inspiring to see young people protesting again. “The point is,” despite politics, she argued, “that they have organized themselves and they are saying things that have to be said.” She also chided the right for being “so old school” as to call the protesters “hippies”– “fifty years have passed, get a new line than ‘dirty hippie.’”

Midler also had a few words about Texas governor Rick Perry and his recent questionable comments about President Obama’s birth certificate. “I don’t think Rick Perry is sure of where he was born!” she joked.

Midler then lamented the "shame" she felt over the "indignity" an American president -- in this instance Barack Obama -- had to suffer when he was reduced to furnishing the nation with his birth certificate.

Watch the interview below: