Thursday, April 17, 2003

Asshat celebrities need a 2x4 across the head

From Fox News: “Anti-War Celebrities may face backlash

Some stars promised to take it all back if the war went well. [Janeane] Garofalo told Fox News' Bill O'Reilly that if the Iraqis were happy with their liberation, she would bring a fruitcake and orchids to the White House and apologize to Bush.

"I would be so willing to say, 'I'm sorry,'" Garofalo said. "I hope to God that I can be made a buffoon of, that people will say, 'You were wrong. You were a fatalist.' And I will go to the White House on my knees on cut glass and say … I shouldn't have doubted you."

[Martin] Sheen told Paul Bond of The Hollywood Reporter that he's "always open to the possibility that I'm wrong," but when asked if he would publicly state that maybe his anti-war rhetoric was too harsh, Sheen promised Bond a dinner where they would "see who eats who."

But no apologies have been heard yet and some say the American people are waiting.

"I don't think the American people will ever forget what they did," [Lori] Bardsley [of Citizens against Celebrity Pundits] said. "They put so much money and so much behind an effort that brought about the most anti-American vile sentiment we've seen in a long time … when our troops were put in harm's way."

Here’s my beef: before the war started, there were a lot of people (like me) who felt that loudmouth celebrity-types like Michael Moore and Sheryl Crow were against the war in Iraq simply because they did not like President Bush. That is, it was never about Iraq or even war in general; it was that the Hollywood crowd just reflexively opposes whatever Bush proposes. But I left open the possibility that they weren’t just engaging in moral posturing, and that they could be genuinely concerned about American troops, the specter of chemical weapons and a drawn-out war.

But now that the war has ended, not one of these peaceniks has come forward to say “I was wrong.” As children poured out of Baghdad prisons, as Iraqis danced atop the shattered remnants of Saddam’s statue, and as new revelations of Hussein’s horrors has come to light, not one has come out and said “This was a good thing.” On the contrary, some, like Tim Robbins, have chosen to pull tight the threadbare cloth of anti-war vanity and claim that it’s they who are being persecuted. How dare we pull aside that veil of smug self-satisfaction!

These Hollywood half-wits could salvage a little credibility and dignity if they admitted what is obvious to even French politicians: the war was a success that made the world a safer place (witness the conciliatory moves in North Korea, Iran, and Syria). Put aside your hate, embrace the truth, and apologize. Otherwise, forfeit your right to whine about censorship when Americans chose to not see your movie.

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