Maureen Dowd on Obama vs. Clinton in Hollywood

Maureen Dowd writes about the Hollywood party given by David Geffen, Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg which raised $1.3 million for Obama. Dowd provides some quotes which show how Hollywood support has shifted from Hillary Clinton to Barack Obama:

“Whoever is the nominee is going to win, so the stakes are very high,” says Mr. Geffen, the Hollywood mogul and sultan of “Dreamgirls,” as he sits by a crackling fire beneath a Jasper Johns flag and a matched pair of de Koonings in the house that Jack Warner built (which old-time Hollywood stars joked was the house that God would have built). “Not since the Vietnam War has there been this level of disappointment in the behavior of America throughout the world, and I don’t think that another incredibly polarizing figure, no matter how smart she is and no matter how ambitious she is — and God knows, is there anybody more ambitious than Hillary Clinton? — can bring the country together.

“Obama is inspirational, and he’s not from the Bush royal family or the Clinton royal family. Americans are dying every day in Iraq. And I’m tired of hearing James Carville on television.”

Later in the column:

“I don’t think anybody believes that in the last six years, all of a sudden Bill Clinton has become a different person,” Mr. Geffen says, adding that if Republicans are digging up dirt, they’ll wait until Hillary’s the nominee to use it. “I think they believe she’s the easiest to defeat.”

She is overproduced and overscripted. “It’s not a very big thing to say, ‘I made a mistake’ on the war, and typical of Hillary Clinton that she can’t,” Mr. Geffen says. “She’s so advised by so many smart advisers who are covering every base. I think that America was better served when the candidates were chosen in smoke-filled rooms.”

Dowd concludes with some background information:

Once, David Geffen and Bill Clinton were tight as ticks. Mr. Geffen helped raise some $18 million for Bill and slept in the Lincoln Bedroom twice. Bill chilled at Chateau Geffen. Now, the Dreamworks co-chairman calls the former president “a reckless guy” who “gave his enemies a lot of ammunition to hurt him and to distract the country.”

They fell out in 2000, when Mr. Clinton gave a pardon to Marc Rich after rebuffing Mr. Geffen’s request for one for Leonard Peltier. “Marc Rich getting pardoned? An oil-profiteer expatriate who left the country rather than pay taxes or face justice?” Mr. Geffen says. “Yet another time when the Clintons were unwilling to stand for the things that they genuinely believe in. Everybody in politics lies, but they do it with such ease, it’s troubling.”

The mogul knows it’s easy to mock Hollywood — “people with Priuses and private planes” — and agrees with George Clooney that it’s probably not helpful for stars to campaign for candidates, given the caricatures of Hollywood.

I ask what he will say if he ever runs into Bill Clinton again. “ ‘Hi,’ ” he replies. And will he be upset if Hillary wins and he never gets to sleep in the Lincoln Bedroom again?

“No,” he says with a puckish smile. “It’s not as nice as my bedroom.”

Update: Clinton Attacks Obama for Fundraiser’s Comments Quoted by Maureen Dowd

4 Comments

  1. 1
    antimatters says:

    Has anyone besides myself seen a similarity between the History Channel’s depiction of the AntiChrist and Obama?

    The thought crossed my mind when he began his unorthodox and meteoric rise to fame, I don’t have anything personal against Obama but now with such people as the gay Clinton basher Geffen (who by the way, has license to influence our children’s minds with his co-chair of Dreamworks) is now USING Obama to get back at Clinton for not pardoning a convicted murderer???

    It’s petty and I’m ashamed both of the media, and how easily lead the public is. This campaign is being catapulted away from the facts and legitimate needs of the country, turning it into a farce. Is this really who the American people are? Is it any wonder most of the world hates us!

  2. 2
    Jake Tyler says:

    Watch this video of the Clinton / Obama feud. It’s fun! http://www.theointment.com/?p=296

    Enjoy

  3. 3
    Mike says:

    this has to be the biggest joke in america. a woman who one day is liberal-the next day almost conservative. then obama-says he’s black but has a white parent as well..God, these people do not who or what they are. what we need is regular guy or woman, not trying to impress themselves or others. and thre power they are after. what a sin, because neither one will make a difference. CAN YOU SPELL PHONY> thank yiu

  4. 4
    Mike says:

    dear miss Dowd. For a little pretty irish girl, i don’nt know how you do it–oh, just got it—-THE LEFT WING PRESS

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