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Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Is David Geffen a Catty Bitch? Or: How it all Comes Back to “Free Leonard Peltier!”

posted by on February 21 at 12:00 PM

Yesterday Kos dredged up the “catty bitch” contretemps in order to make a point about what he said was Maureen Dowd’s unfairness to Barack Obama.

Today Maureen Dowd, writing from Hollywood, delivers a huge gift to the Obama campaign via an interview with former Clinton supporter David Geffen, who helped organize the big Hollywood fundraiser for Obama last night. (And for those keeping score in Kos v. Dowd, no, I don’t think this means she took his critique to heart and decided to be nice to Obama. I think it’s more likely that Dowd’s column was finished before Kos’s post ever went up — which sort of undercuts Kos’s theory that she was ever out to get Obama in the first place, doesn’t it?)

In any case, from David Geffen’s mouth to Maureen Dowd’s notepad, and from there to the NYT Opinon page and blogs everywhere:

“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.”

And:

“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 is the nominee to use it. “I think they believe she’s the easiest to defeat.”

And of Mrs. Clinton’s war stance and campaign so far: “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.”

Presto. A furious Clinton camp, and an Obama-Clinton-Geffen verbal brawl.

But why so glum about the Clintons, Mr. Geffen? This is the part I love…

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.”

Like the college kids say: Free Leonard Peltier! (Or no Hollywood money for you!)

RSS icon Comments

1

Association with anyone in Hollywood is the kiss of death for Democratic candidates -- and should be. Geffen is scum. People suck up to him and people like him because they're starfuckers, but starfuckers don't win elections.

Posted by Fnarf | February 21, 2007 12:13 PM
2

Oh really, Fnarf? Didn't see Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis up on the stage, prominently featured at Republican Conventions?

Posted by andy niable | February 21, 2007 12:25 PM
3

Fnarf: Looks like MyDD sort of agrees with you.

Posted by Eli Sanders | February 21, 2007 12:26 PM
4

Above - to grumpy FNARF

What about Bill's love fest with Hollywood? Was it not two terms?

Obama is on track, take the cash and keep it serious. And let surrogates dump on the Clintons.

Called publicity, look, the Stranger can't resist. Good fishing David Geffen, who is not scum. Just success in a hard fought business and a big time homo.

And he gives sway tens of millions to gay causes.

Posted by celisea | February 21, 2007 12:28 PM
5

Well..... all the dirty on Bill and Hilary is being readied.

Won't be pretty, more pic of Bill's dick, and possible Ms. Clinton's affairs, where there has been smoke for years.

Posted by kk3 | February 21, 2007 12:36 PM
6

I'm pretty sure David Geffen is scum. He may claim to be progressive, but his elitist, condescending comments seem to reveal his true colors. Politics for him is all about personal advancement. I was cringing throughout Dowd's whole column. The idea that picking candidates in smoke-filled rooms is better than democratic primaries is backward and insulting. Especially if those smoke-filled rooms are filled with Hollywood's effete elite.

Posted by Ryan | February 21, 2007 12:41 PM
7

Well, the thank you gifts we got for supporting the Clintons were 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell,' and the Federal 'Defense of Marriage Act,' so I can see why he's a little bitter.

On the Obama side, I'm with Matt Taibbi. Obama's an awesome bullshit artist. No policies, no stances, no specifics... no thanks.

http://www.alternet.org/story/48051/

I'm so fed up with our corrupt system and crooked candidates that I think I simply may not vote at all and sit out the 2008 election. It would be the first time I haven't voted since I turned 18 and voted for Clinton in '92. The whole situation just seems so hopeless.

Posted by Original Andrew | February 21, 2007 12:46 PM
8

I'm not going to get into a battle of ad hominem acts w/ Fnarf and Eli.

Leonard Peltier should have been pardoned. Maybe the college kids say that, but Amnesty International may add some credence to that position.

The Republicans are readying the attacks for Hilary, and they would love to turn the dialogue away from the disaster that they have been making of this country for the last 6 years. The Democrats are already having trouble staying on the November mandate they were give to make some progress in Iraq, and instead are allowing the president to pursue a plan that was not endorsed by the Iraq study group or the generals on the ground.

The next election should be a referendum on 8 years of failed Republican policy, and not some debate whether Hilary is a bitch or a lesbian. I believe that the Democrats are going to have to nominate a less divisive candidate in order to try to keep the debate focused on at least some of the crucial issues facing this country. I don't like the fact that they are going to have to consider the dirty tactics that the Republicans are going to employ against their candidate, and would like to see try campaign finance reform. However, this is too critical a time in this country's history to allow for another election to be decided based on personality politics.

Posted by dwb | February 21, 2007 12:56 PM
9

Schwarzenegger, for better or worse, is the governor of the largest state in the union, and Bruce Willis -- well, he's there as kind of a visual rebuttal. But no one takes him seriously; no one even knows what he thinks about anything. He's eye candy (for god knows who, I can't imagine).

The Dems on the other hand have an endless list of celebrity opinionators, who cannot shut up about any issue in the world. But actual Americans do not give a flying fuck what Susan Sarandon, Sean Penn, Barbara Streisand, or David Geffen (or Bruce Willis) have to say about anything at all -- and every time they hear them say it, they move en masse just a little in the opposite direction. Hollywood hurts, not helps.

As for Geffen, I'm glad he's a big gay booster and all, and yes, his "industry" is a tough one, but so is cleaning septic tanks, and that at least creates a positive benefit for society as a whole. Though that Ashlee Simpson record is pretty hot, I guess.

Posted by Fnarf | February 21, 2007 1:00 PM
10

Really, Fnarf? Then why do they actually watch the stories about what they say and buy the magazines that talk about what they say?

We don't admit it - but we do it. We've been that way as a society for a long time - all prudish on the outside and obsessed on the inside - kind of like Charles.

Posted by Will in Seattle | February 21, 2007 4:48 PM
11

Obsessed, certainly, but not about their politics. Nobody gives a shit what celebrities think about politics. We want to know about their rehab and their head shaving and their vomit-choking and their dead babies, but not their views on politics.

Posted by Fnarf | February 21, 2007 5:21 PM
12

David geffen is right. The Clintons are scum. Billy Bob would not pardon Leonard peltier and he executed a retarded black man to gain political points in 1992. Billy slob actually stopped campaigning in New hampshire so he could fly down to Arkansas and be present for the execution. I have had it with all these Clintonoid humanoid sychophants! Is Bill clinton a compassionate conservative?

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13

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