Mullings: An American Cyber-column By Rich Galen

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But I Do Know One and One is Two ...

Monday August 11, 2003

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BEGIN Self-Aggrandizement Alert

From last Wednesday afternoon through Saturday evening I appeared on all four cable networks and one foreign network a total of 13 times to talk about Schwarzenegger and/or Gore
Thank you Arnold and Albert.

END Self-Aggrandizement Alert

The drumbeat that began last week about how Arnold don't know nothing about balancing no budgets, now sounds like the second act of "Stomp!"

Arnold Schwarzenegger can't be labeled (as Gray Davis and his eight remaining Democratic supporters in California would like to do) as a "right-wing extremist" because Rush Limbaugh has said that Arnold Schwarzenegger isn't a Conservative at all.

Darn.

So, they've gone to plan B: Schwarzenegger can't be Governor because he has no experience being a Governor or having anything to do with GovernMENT.

Mullster Jim Duffy wrote:

"If actors are such poor choices for positions of responsibility why are we expected to take Streisand, Sarandon (and all the others who testify before Congress and fill the media with their commentary) seriously?

Excellent question, Mr. Duffy. As an example, the media treated Sean Penn - SEAN PENN! - as a serious foreign policy analyst when he visited Baghdad before the war. ABC News headlined a solemn on-line report, "Actor Sean Penn Questions U.S. Policy, Visits Baghdad."

No smirking. No eye-rolls. No wondering aloud what a guy who has been arrested numerous times for fighting could tell the world about peace.

Democrat/Liberal = Smart. Republican/Any-Stripe = Dumb.

Back in 1985, according to Charles Oliver in a Reason Magazine piece, Sally Field, Sissy Spacek and Jessica Lang all testified before Congress on the issues confronting family farms.

Their bona fides? They had all played farm wives in a movie. They had read words written by some guys sitting in Los Angeles about life in Iowa (or somewhere similar), and so they were considered experts.

At least Sally Field was appropriately named. If there's a hearing about aliens, I'm for Sissy doing the sequel.

Much more recently, Bill Clinton invited the highly respected Nobel Prize winner in Environmental Science, Dr. Leonardo DiCaprio, to interview him about environmental policy on behalf of - I suspect you may see a pattern here - ABC News.

When the interview became public, the White House press office and the ABC News bureau in Washington had slightly different versions about how it all came about, but Lenny did end up interviewing Bill on environmental policy using an ABC News Crew.

ABC News President David Westin sent out a memo saying "No one is that stupid" as to send DiCaprio to conduct a Presidential interview for ABC.

SOMEone was that stupid.

Here's what didn't happen: That interview took place in April, 2000. Remember what else was going on in April of 2000? Yes, indeed! A Presidential campaign.

By April of 2000 Vice President Al Gore had dispatched his principal challenger for the Democratic Nomination for President, Bill Bradley. Did anyone ask Al "The Environmental Vice President" Gore what he thought about all this?

Nah.

Most recently, of course, we have the anti-war Hollywood group which was treated by the media as if they were auditioning for Secretary of State the very second the Democrats take over the White House. Did anyone in the media run questions about whether they had any idea about the region's history or people. You think they knew a Sunni from a Shi'ite?

One of the leaders of the group was a comedian. Janeane Garofalo whom no one had even heard of before she got her fifteen minutes.

Here's what a web site supporting Ms. Garofalo said about her: "She's unfairly targeted for being intelligent, witty, well read, informed, and too good looking."

Ok. That IS funny.

On the Secret Decoder Ring page today: My TV interview schedule from last week, links to the Congressional Hearings, the WH visit of Mr. DiCaprio, the ABC piece on Sean Penn, a great Mullfoto and an amusing Catchy Caption of the day.

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