Last week at CPAC I ran into liberal Hollywood icon Richard Dreyfuss. The rumor around CPAC was that Dreyfuss had seen that shining city on the hill and was “turning conservative.”  I wondered if I would see him because I have enjoyed some of his movies.

The opportunity arose when we both finished interviews on radio row.  I approached Dreyfuss, put out my hand, and said “Hi, I am David Bossie, President of Citizens United.”  Dreyfuss’ eyes lit up like he just saw Jaws and he said, “You’re going to have a hard time getting into heaven if you believe in that sort of stuff.”  I was taken aback and asked, “Why?” Dreyfuss then went on a diatribe equating the Citizens United v. FEC Supreme Court decision to the Khmer Rouge.  He compared me to Pol Pot “stacking skulls” back at my office.  He actually used his hands to seemingly act out the stacking of skulls.  I replied by saying, “I thought you would have been supportive of my First Amendment Supreme Court case because you are in the business of supporting the First Amendment.”  He did not have a clear response and looked like a frustrated, institution-bound Dr. Leo Marvin from his Oscar-worthy performance in What About Bob?

For someone who was at CPAC to promote a civics and civility campaign, calling me one of the worst mass murderers in history strikes me as awfully hypocritical. But this is not the first time Dreyfuss has used extreme and offensive language to make a political point.  He once compared former Vice President Dick Cheney to Adolf Hitler and agreed with comments that wished Cheney dead (though later apologized). 

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Josh Brolin sounding ridiculously defensive over a two-year old movie on Jimmy Kimmel:

“They want to criticise it because you think it’s Oliver Stone, it’s Josh Brolin, who people perceive as very, very left wing, which I’m not necessarily. They think it’s gonna be heavy hitting; it’s gonna be, like, a sledgehammer on George Bush and we didn’t do that.

“We wanted to know the guy that never should have been president and probably should have run a baseball team – and been very happy doing it.”

Brolin insists the Republican friends who did see the film were surprised by it: “They were like, ‘It’s kinda sad, isn’t it?’”

The actor has heard that Bush himself saw the film – and liked it. ….

“I don’t know if that’s true or not, but I love him, like, two in the morning in this blue glow of sitting at home and, like, maybe tears coming down his face.

Like, why does Brolin, like, talk like a fourteen year-old girl?

And wasn’t it just yesterday he was gushing like a groupie over Howard Zinn’s smile?

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Over the past two years, Academy Award-winner Richard Dreyfuss has undertaken a campaign for civility in political discourse. To aide in achieving this civility, he launched the Dreyfuss Initiative in 2010, the proximate of goal of which was to promote “a…diverse variety of websites representing disparate political opinions… to foster a discussion related to the future of America.” (His stated goals for a revival of civility even reach into K-12 classrooms, for which he is personally designing a curriculum to ignite students’ interest in Civics once more.)

Oh yes, and I almost forgot to mention that he sees nothing uncivil about the fact that MSNBC’s Ed Schultz wishes that former Vice President Dick Cheney would die.

That’s right: When recently asked about comments Schultz made in March 2009, wherein Schultz called Cheney an “enemy of the country” and prayed that God would soon whisk him away to “the Promised Land,” Dreyfus said the words were “beautifully phrased.” (Moreover, Hollywood’s self-proclaimed crusader for civility is on record saying that when he prepared to play Cheney in the movie “W.,” he did so by searching his own heart to find “villainy in the world.”)

It’s kind of discombobulating isn’t it? First, Dreyfuss bemoans lacks of civility in political discourse so he founds the Dreyfuss Initiative to help foster civility in our discourse again. Secondly, he bemoans the diminished study of Civics, which he views as a basis for civility, thus he forges a curriculum to restore the study of Civics (and therefore promote civility). Finally, he then calls Cheney a villain and says that Schultz’s prayers for Cheney’s death were “beautifully phrased.” (more…)

Everyone wants to enjoy their retirement, whether they’re noble people like a schoolteacher or a fireman, or as ruthlessly coldblooded as a black ops agent or Hillary Clinton. But some professions don’t lend themselves easily to kicking back on a fishing boat or rocking on the front porch – a fact that Bruce Willis learns the hard way in the very amusing new action-comedy “RED.”

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Willis plays Frank Moses, a former CIA analyst who was secretly the nation’s most kickass black ops agent. His need for secrecy throughout his professional career has left him with no friends and no one with whom to keep the home fires burning. But he does have a long-distance telephone flirtation with the government payroll clerk (Mary-Louise Parker) who handles his pension check, and when an army of machine-gun-toting killers comes to wipe him out at his placid suburban home, he hits the road to kidnap her by surprise.

The reason is that whoever is out to kill him is likely gunning for her as well, an assumption that proves true almost immediately and forces the pair to further hopscotch the country as Willis rounds up his three closest former RED (Retired, Extremely Dangerous) associates – a crack trio of eccentric agents played with complete joy by Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren and especially a priceless John Malkovich – to figure out why someone’s out to kill them, and who’s behind the list of a dozen deaths that are being dispatched in quick fashion by agents led by Julian McMahon. (more…)

To Hollywood

Logan is trying to understand, but he is only four. His father’s plane went down in Iraq on Memorial Day of 2008. When asked about his dad, he puts his hand on his heart and says, “My daddy is a hero.” He goes to get his toy tool kit. He is going to fix the plane so that daddy can come home. Logan loves to hear the stories from the small group of Combat Controllers that knew his dad. Soon, a book will be out for him. The book is called “Letters for Logan.” It will tell the story of the soldier and the man. Logan is too young to understand the anger, bitterness, poor timing and judgment of Hollywood, California. Logan is not alone. On the plane that carried five good men to heaven that day, six children lost their dads. There are over 700 children of fallen Spec Ops Warriors to date.

The soldier is my son, Capt. Derek Argel. In the sixth grade, he made a decision that to serve God, Country and family was a privilege and not a right. He understood that the gifts he had been given in athletic and intellectual abilities were to be shared with his country. Less than 300 men did his job, worldwide. They were the elite of the elite.

At that time, he decided he would become the best officer and Special Ops Warrior he could for the freedoms and gifts this country gave him. He was the best son a mother could ask for. He was everyone’s best friend. Most felt he would become a General, then run for President. (more…)

Richard Dreyfuss and Elizabeth McGovern have travelled across the pond to star in a play about America’s torture of terrorist suspects.  That’s right, not “alleged” torture. It’s a fact as far as this play is concerned.  And, the funny thing about the Variety review is that the fact that the whole world knows that America is guilty of torture undermines the effect of the play: 

The terrible timing is not Kevin Spacey’s fault: He couldn’t have known “Complicit” — U.S. dramatist Joe Sutton’s fictional indictment of his country’s possible condoning of torture and rendition — would premiere after President Obama had taken steps to dismantle that practice.

Clips of a TV interview with real-life BBC senior political commentator Andrew Marr provide details of Ben’s inflammatory publication, none of which can be news to British audiences with even a cursory knowledge of Guantanamo and other widely exposed scandals. (more…)