This
Bird Has Flown
Hollywood wackos unite.
I’ve got a fairly open mind when it comes to separating a movie star’s talent from his or her political views. While nothing by the fraudulent Michael Moore is allowed in our house, it’d be silly, for example, to boycott films by liberal activists like Robert Redford, Tim Robbins, Susan Sarandon, John Cusack, Sean Penn and even Barbra Streisand just because they use their celebrity to say some very stupid things.
Redford’s an enviro kook, but The Natural, The Sting, All the President’s Men, The Candidate, Sneakers and even the Casablanca-derivative Havana are all worth renting or buying. Iraqi humanitarian Penn’s Mystic River, along with The Falcon and the Snowman, as well as Cusack’s The Grifters and Grosse Pointe Blank are more than notable. And when a gifted actor like James Woods vexes his peers by speaking about current events coherently, so much the better.
It’s the also-rans who bug me. Consider Ethan Hawke. A fine performance in Dead Poets Society, a reasonable sidekick to Denzel Washington in Training Day, and that’s about it. In the spirit of generosity, let’s ignore his two novels and dabbling in the theater. Hawke, a good-looking guy, is on the cover of this month’s Details, and while the content of his syrupy, self-pitying interview with editor Daniel Peres is mostly devoted to Uma Thurman and their marital breakup, which doesn’t interest me, the concluding two questions demonstrated just what a moron this pampered actor is.
Asked about November’s election, Hawke responded: "I think that George W. Bush is probably the least prepared person to be president of the United States that’s been elected in a long time, if not ever." Apparently, when the adolescent Ethan was tutored on movie sets, the names Jimmy Carter, Warren G. Harding or James Buchanan never came up. He then gushes about Bill Clinton’s nobility, citing the Arkansan’s admirable ability to overcome a stormy and less than privileged childhood–unlike Bush and John Kerry–and wishes he’d have just gone silent about Monica and God knows whom else.
He continues: "Think about it–we have an ex-coke fiend as a president… Martin Luther King suffered from infidelity, so did John F. Kennedy. And you’re much more likely to find great leadership coming from a man who likes to have sex with a lot of women than one who’s monogamous. I’m not saying that men shouldn’t be monogamous, but what I mean is, there’s no fucking correlation in the world to that having anything to do with ethics as a leader, as a world leader."
Could be. But if Hawke were going to make that case, you’d think he’d name FDR, say, rather than Clinton as a great world leader.
James Bowman, the excellent and prolific journalist who contributes to The New Criterion, National Review and the resuscitated American Spectator, is crankier on the subject than me. He brought up Hawke’s political expertise last Friday on the Spectator’s website, and damned most of Hollywood, although with an air of resignation.
Noting veering-toward-middle-age Ethan’s remark about Bush’s paucity of preparation for the presidency, Bowman wrote: "[W]e ought to be used to it by now. If we can suffer Barbra Streisand or Richard Dreyfuss or Janeane Garofalo or any of dozens of other ‘stars’ [Rob Reiner, the butt of jokes on the terrific South Park, also comes to mind] to pronounce on matters of sate, why not Mr. Hawke? He may be a self-important little nincompoop, but no more of one than most of those in a profession for which both self-importance and nincompoopery are positive qualifications… [T]he problem isn’t so much that the Hollywood airheads are piping up, it’s what they are piping up to say. It’s one thing to assert that, say, the Prescription Drug bill is too favorable to the pharmaceutical industry; it’s quite another to say, as Ms. Garofalo did recently, that the Prescription Drug bill was a effectively a ‘you-can-go-f***-yourself-Grandma bill.’"
Conventional Repetition
I’ve often referred to Newsweek’s long-running "Conventional Wisdom" as a microcosm of that magazine’s left-wing bent. Yes, George Will’s biweekly essay still manages to provide a thin veneer of diversity, but any mass-circulation weekly that includes the likes of Jonathan Alter, Howard Fineman, Eleanor Clift, Fareed Zakaria and Anna Quindlen isn’t exactly trying to disguise its bias.
The March 8 "CW" entry, headlined "Left At The Altar Edition," is typical. The brief intro reads, "Key Republicans have already annulled Bush’s proposed gay rights constitutional amendment. So it’s all just politics." The President is then the first item on the current edition: "[Bush] gives Dems a wedgie on gay marriage, but it exposes him as nakedly pandering to his base."
Not exactly a surprise. Yet in the space of fewer than 35 words, the Newsweek wiseacres ("CW" is the editorial staff’s forum to appear "edgy," "hip," "irreverent" or whatever antiquated cliche that affluent, aging, bongo-bopping journalists like to imagine themselves as) get the entire issue wrong. While it’s true that Bush’s endorsement of a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage isn’t likely to pass anytime soon, and many Republicans are voicing skepticism about the idea, this is a rapidly escalating issue, the complexion of which will probably be entirely different three months from now.
If, for example, gay marriages take place as scheduled in John Kerry’s Massachusetts starting in May, and San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom (having a jolly old time raising his national political profile) continues to flout California’s law by allowing same-sex unions and other municipalities follow suit, it’s almost a given that currently reluctant Republicans and conservative Democrats will bend to the polling in their states or congressional districts and change their minds.
Additionally, if Bush’s reelection campaign were based on pandering to his base, why in the world would he have proposed immigration reform earlier this year, a vital (to my mind) stance that alienated that very same bloc of voters? Newsweek, like most of the elite media, simply can’t fathom that Bush actually believes gay marriage ought not be permitted in this country. I don’t happen to agree–much to the consternation of most Americans, this is cultural evolution that’s bound to occur–but unlike Kerry, whose face turns more lemon-like than usual when the topic is raised, at least Bush is honest about his views.
Meanwhile, at the slightly less anti-Bush Time, columnist Mitch Frank contributed a piece that would’ve been spiked at the rival Newsweek (Feb. 26). Repeating the shopworn media complaint that the Democratic primary season is too quick this year–for reporters, at least–Frank wonders if intellectual behemoth Terry McAuliffe goofed in pushing for an early nominee. Paraphrasing the re-energized Bush’s speech to GOP governors on Feb. 23, Frank writes: "The President’s message to voters: Democrats are wusses; you may or may not agree with policies, but you want someone with strong convictions in office if al-Qaeda strikes again."
He continues: "[I]f Bush succeeds in defining Kerry as well as he did in painting Al Gore as a fibbing, out-of-touch know-it-all, it will be because Kerry did not do a good job defining himself. He certainly hasn’t done so yet." Perhaps unintentionally, the columnist concludes with this ominous warning: "So let [the Democratic candidates] run awhile longer. Let’s see who really can win. And in 2008, the DNC and state parties should craft a less front-loaded process. It does no good if it nominates the wrong guy."
That sounds, however premature, like a postmortem for Kerry to me.
Keller’s Out in a Year
I can’t quite put a finger on the source of the utter chaos at the New York Times these days, but it’s hard to believe Bill Keller will have a long reign as executive editor. In fact, publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. undoubtedly knows he goofed putting the genteel Keller in charge, but another purge so soon after Howell Raines’ ignominious departure would do more harm than good.
One example is Carl Hulse’s Feb. 29 article about the Democrats’ pessimism for regaining control of the House in November’s elections. Read this single paragraph and then wonder why Hulse (or his editors) didn’t press sources for any kind of clarification. "Democrats said they were heartened that President Bush had found himself on the defensive recently, and predicted that the record deficit compiled under Republican control could play to their benefit. But Democrats and others cited significant factors working against them, including recruiting failures, fund-raising difficulties and redistricting."
Okay, just as the Democrats out-gerrymandered the GOP in the 80s, Tom DeLay and his foot soldiers have returned the favor in this decade, particularly in Texas. However, if, as Hulse asserts, Democrats are "heartened" by Bush’s political difficulties, why is it so hard for the minority party to raise money and recruit candidates? Why hasn’t George Soros, for example, chucked $20 million into the pot to help rectify those problems? Back in ’94, Newt Gingrich exploited Bill Clinton’s weaknesses and engineered the GOP House takeover. If Bush, as the media says, is so vulnerable, you’d think Hulse might’ve asked Democratic minority leader Nancy Pelosi just why her party has practically conceded, for the sixth consecutive election, control to the GOP.
But what do you expect of a Times leader who apparently doesn’t bat an eye when star op-ed columnist Maureen Dowd writes complete fiction (Feb. 29)? In yet another condemnation of the "paranoid" Bush administration’s "secrecy," especially when it comes to what officials knew prior to the terrorist attacks in New York and DC more than two years ago, Dowd is at her burnt-out worst. She makes this preposterous claim: "Bush officials act as though they own 9/11, even while refusing to own up to any 9/11 mistakes. Because of 9/11, they think they can suspend the Constitution, blow off investigators, attack nations pre-emptively, and keep Americans afraid by waging a war against terrorism that can never be won."
Maybe I was out getting a cup of coffee, but when was the Constitution suspended? If that actually happened, don’t you think Dowd would be watching Donald Trump’s reality show from a prison cell right now?
