For those of you wondering why Leftist Hollywood is so enamored with Marxist thugs like Castro and Chavez, this might help to clear that up.
But that was before Obama took office and started to compromise on issues important to industry activists.
Sure, such reliable Hollywood Democrats as George Clooney, Tom Hanks, Will Ferrell, Steven Spielberg and Peter Chernin each have donated $35,800, the maximum allowable by law, to the Obama Victory Fund.
But others have yet to loosen their purse strings, and many believe the industry has turned on Obama.
Producer Lawrence Bender — one of Obama’s earliest Hollywood supporters –admits that “there are a lot of people who are disappointed. His ratings are down. He’s having a really hard time right now.” Bender says he’s particularly disappointed by the president’s recent delay of new clean air regulations. “Obviously, that’s a huge letdown,” he says, “but overall, I’m still going to support him.”
Norman Lear, liberal Hollywood’s reigning eminence grise, says he still backs Obama but will not give money to his campaign. “I want Obama to get re-elected and I will help him,” he tells The Hollywood Reporter, “but I will do it the way I like to do it and not the D.C. way.”
Lear says he plans to invest the money in one of his own political groups, like the People for the American Way, instead of writing a check to Obama’s re-election committee. “I don’t mean this to sound arrogant,” says Lear, who gave $33,100 to Obama in 2008. “I just think I can do a better job of getting the message out.”
You see, it’s not the rise in poverty or chronic unemployment or the threat of a second Great Recession that has the Hollywood Left off in a corner pouting. No, it’s that Obama hasn’t put more job-killing strangleholds on the economy.
In other words, as the poorest among us are hit the hardest, these elitist fat cats are sitting sit in their Global Warming-creating mansions annoyed over the fact that the government isn’t doing enough to ensure the rest of us never get to own a Global Warming-creating mansion.
Furthermore, this is all a ruse. Leftist Hollywood’s having a tantrum in the hopes of getting their way, which is something they can afford to do in 2011. But we all know that come election time the Hollywood money will flow like water.
It’s easy to pretend you have principles during an odd-numbered year.