This thing is only a month old and it already reads like a news report from the Civil War.
Hollywood Liberals Say Most Americans Agree With Them
By Marc Morano
CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer
July 30, 2004
Boston (CNSNews.com) - Hollywood celebrities attending the Democratic National Convention in Boston this week declared that an overwhelming majority of Americans agree with their liberal political views.
Actor and producer Rob Reiner, best known for playing "Meathead" on television's "All in the Family," said that on just about every issue, Americans support liberalism.
"If you look at the country in general, more people agree with the progressive positions than with the conservative positions," Reiner told CNSNews.com on Wednesday.
"Go down the issues and see where the general public stands on a particular issue -- whether it's education or the environment or health care -- I think most of the time you will see people falling down on the progressive side," Reiner said.
Reiner said that conservatives' use of social "wedge issues" and their mastery of the media have given them a disproportionate success rate with their policies.
"I think they (conservatives) have very methodically and carefully built a very strong infrastructure in this country over the last 30-35 years with think tanks, media messaging -- they have been very, very disciplined. They have been very smart about putting out a consistent message," Reiner said.
But Reiner added that liberals are now mobilizing and eventually will achieve success against the prevailing conservative juggernaut.
"We (liberals) don't even have to be on a level playing field. If we are on a slightly less level playing field, our ideas are so much more appealing to the public than theirs," Reiner explained.
Actor Ben Affleck said at a DNC celebrity panel discussion on Wednesday that America's political views are solidly to the left.
"If you polled all people in America, probably 65 percent of people would align themselves with the Democrats," Affleck said at the panel discussion titled "Funny But True: Important Issue in 2004."
Affleck believes that conservatives place so much pressure on the media to cast them in a positive light that it skews the objectivity of the news.
"Most reporters, too, some of whom are Democrats, too, bent over backwards to say, 'Well I have to be fair, so I have to endlessly play up the Clinton blow-job story,'" he said.
Conservatives called 'better fighters'
Left-wing filmmaker Michael Moore says public opinion polls prove that the American people side with the left.
"Every poll shows that the majority of America believes in women's rights, the majority of Americans want stronger environmental law, the majority of Americans want gun control laws, the majority of Americans are pro-labor," Moore, the producer of "Fahrenheit 9/11," said in a speech on Tuesday in Boston.
Moore did credit conservatives and the GOP with being better at promoting their policies. "They are better fighters than we are. You have to give them their props for that.
"They are up at six in the morning trying to figure out which -- you know -- minority group they are going to screw today -- the hate that they eat for breakfast," Moore said. "Our side, we never see six in the morning, unless we have been up all night," he added.
'Looking like South America'
All the conservatives' hard work has led to the enactment of conservative policies, but those policies have a price tag, according to actor Alec Baldwin. He blames conservative fiscal policy for a failure to invest in the U.S. infrastructure.
"One of the great joys of this business that we're in is that I travel all over this country. I made films in every part of this country. As I travel this country, I see that more and more of it is looking like South America every day," Baldwin said on Wednesday, referring to what he sees as the nation's crumbling infrastructure.
Baldwin also displayed his contempt for President Bush's handling of the war on terror. He said that one of the possible reasons that Bush did not immediately leave the elementary school class where he was reading books to children on the morning of the September 11 terror attacks was because he expected Vice President Dick Cheney to handle the crisis.
"I think that the only reason he sat there [after he was alerted to the second plane crash] is because it was pre-ordained in this administration that if that kind of event occurred, that he has no role it," Baldwin said at a celebrity panel discussion. His remark drew applause.
According to Baldwin, Cheney was hiding in his "hole calling all the shots for [Bush.]"
But there is one Republican for whom Baldwin expressed admiration.
"If John McCain were the nominee of this party against John Kerry, and John McCain won the election, I could live with that," he said. McCain, the senator from Arizona, was said to be on Kerry's short list of vice presidential nominees, although McCain insisted he would not run on a Kerry ticket.
'Hollywood not an evil empire'
Actress-turned-liberal-radio-host Janeane Garofalo said many people misunderstand Hollywood celebrities.
"Hollywood, like any other geographical location, has heterogeneous people with heterogeneous views," Garofalo said in an interview with CNSNews.com on Thursday.
"Hollywood is not an evil empire within. It is human beings, tax-paying citizens that are not defined by their vocation nor their geographical location," she said.
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