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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jerrel Peters who wrote (398420)	4/24/2003 4:55:22 PM
From: Mark Konrad	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769667

Not true! Celebrities are crying all the way to the bank: Wednesday, April 23, 2003 Hollywood Appeasers Cash In on Anti-U.S. Rants Don't believe the whining of Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon and other Tinseltown leftists who claim they're paying a price for opposing Operation Iraqi Freedom. They're getting rich from their anti-U.S. activism, according to the liberal Washington Post. Consider this boast from Janeane Garofalo, who still refuses to make the apology she so publicly promised after Iraqi citizens welcomed their U.S.-led liberators. "I knew when I started speaking out that it was going to be unpleasant, and I've taken my punches. But the positives have far outweighed the negatives," she gloated. "Before this I was a moderately well-known character actress. Now I'm almost famous." Indeed. Since ranting against Operation Iraqi Freedom on TV news shows, she has bagged countless offers for speaking engagements, stand-up gigs and stage roles, bundles of fan mail and a sitcom pilot with ABC, the Post noted. "The other day, after a decade and a half of doing comedy, she made America Online's 'Comedians to Watch' list." "If you're a producer or a studio, I can't imagine in our time some studio executive saying, 'Let's not use Martin Sheen,' or 'Let's not use Tim Robbins,'" UCLA film prof Howard Suber said. "That would be in Variety the next day. "These days you don't get used if you're a kook, if you're difficult or you snort too much coke. If it doesn't get in the way of making a film, they don't care what you do," he said. The Post notes that "dissent, it seems, can be a pretty good career move." And "All told, widespread publicity about celebrities' war views has helped, not hurt, the careers of the famous." Even Robbins, who fantasized about "a climate of fear," is sitting pretty. "I'm OK," he had to admit. "I just finished two films. I don't believe there's fallout. If there was, I don't think anyone would say, 'We're not hiring you for political reasons.'" His longtime live-in, Sarandon, continues to make movie after movie, whereas the sexist industry that employs her has no use for most 56-year-old actresses. This payback comes despite her unpopularity with the American public, as seen in the poor box-office results from her latest movies, "Moonlight Mile" and "The Banger Sisters," and the disastrous ratings for her CBS TV flick Sunday. Others who have gotten rich from their appeasement rants: a.. After Michael Moore's bizarre tirade against President Bush on worldwide television at the Oscars, his obviously autobiographical book about being a stupid white man shot back up to the top of the best-seller lists. He claims that orders on Amazon for his latest semi-fictitious "documentary" have outpaced those of the Oscar winner for best picture, "Chicago," and that there's even interest in reviving his failed TV series despite the poor ratings it fetched. b.. Although leftists moaned and wailed and uttered phony cries of "censorship" when sales of the Dixie Chicks' latest release dropped after singer Natalie Maines told a foreign audience that the group was ashamed Bush was from Texas, the CD returned to No. 1 on the country charts last week. Getting rich from left-wing activism is hardly a new phenomenon in Hollywood, the Post notes. c.. "Hanoi" Jane Fonda's reward for spreading lies of the Viet Cong who were torturing American POWs: roles most actresses would kill for, multimillion-dollar salaries and two Oscars. (And a failed but profitable marriage to media tycoon Ted Turner, though some would consider that a punishment.) d.. Woody Harrelson's reward for opposing the Gulf War in 1991, after Saddam Hussein attacked Kuwait: an Emmy, an Oscar nomination and juicy big-screen movie roles despite his limited talent. Though his career has been in the toilet for years, don't be surprised if he too finds a way to profit from his latest anti-war screeds. For Hollywood's minstrels and would-be geopolitical experts, there's no such thing as bad publicity. But woe unto anyone who dares criticize those who aid and comfort Hussein's genocidal dictatorship. Self-styled "peace" activists are quick to threaten violence against anyone who finds fault with Tinseltown's tyros. For more on Hollywood's latest hypocrisies, read James Hirsen's Left Coast Report.