John Kerry's Hollywood Connection: Barbara Streisand, Michael Moore, and Fahrenheit 9/11

George C. Landrith

When I was a young boy, my mother taught me to choose my friends and associates carefully and warned me to that others would judge me by the company I kept. This is almost universal advice and I suspect that John Kerry’s mother gave him similar warnings. But apparently, John did not listen. Kerry’s friends, supporters and associates include some very troubling and extreme people.

The Hollywood Left, for example, just hosted a $5 million fundraiser for Kerry in Los Angeles. The same people, who glorify and sell sex, violence, and counterculture values to our children, endorse John Kerry and his leadership.

Barbara Streisand sang old favorites and told the crowd, who paid up to $25,000 each to attend, that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is “the spookiest person in the world." John Kerry and the Hollywood crowd heartily approved. However, to most Americans, even those who have questions about Bush’s policies or Rumsfeld’s implementation of them, the threat of terrorism is far more “spooky” than a man who has served his country twice as Secretary of Defense. Most Americans understand that we are fighting a war on terror in the terrorist’s backyard so that the battle is not fought on America’s streets.

Those who hope to never see another day like September 11th are mighty glad that Mr. Rumsfeld is scary to terrorists. Being scary to terrorists is a good thing. This simple truth completely escaped Barbara Streisand, John Kerry and his adoring Hollywood supporters. It also escapes the French and other foreign leaders whose support John Kerry claims.

But Hollywood’s support doesn’t end with fundraising. After much hoopla, Michael Moore’s anti-Bush propaganda movie, Fahrenheit 9/11, opened in theatres. Moore calls it a “documentary,” but in just the first few minutes of the movie, Moore’s deception reaches breathtaking heights. First, Moore claims that Bush stole the presidency and that Gore won in Florida. Yet, several news organizations counted and recounted every single ballot in Florida and each time Bush still won. These are the indisputable facts and they were available to Moore, but he simply ignored them.

Second, Moore falsely claims that Bush allowed bin Laden relatives to return to Saudi Arabia shortly after 9/11 on secret flights when the rest of the nation was grounded. However, Bush did no such thing. Richard Clarke, who now bashes Bush for the war on terror, admits he, not Bush, approved the flights. Moore liberally uses Clark’s anti-Bush statements when they support his conspiracy theories, but when Clark’s testimony doesn’t support his objectives, Moore edits Clark out of the movie. Moore doesn’t allow the truth to get in his way.

The New York Times printed that Moore’s movie was “an editorial cartoon.” The Los Angeles Times said, “It is propaganda, no doubt about it.” The Washington Post said the movie was “threaded … with cheap shots” and was essentially a “cartoon.” The reviewer “was troubled by the cheapness of Moore's interviewing techniques.” Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly called it “rank propaganda.” Even Michael more offers no defense, saying, “I'm not trying to pretend that this is some sort of, you know, fair and balanced work of journalism."

In the Left-leaning Slate Magazine, Christopher Hitchens wrote, “To describe this film as dishonest and demagogic would almost be to promote those terms to the level of respectability. To describe this film as a piece of crap would be to run the risk of a discourse that would never again rise above the excremental. To describe it as an exercise in facile crowd-pleasing would be too obvious. Fahrenheit 9/11 is a sinister exercise in moral frivolity, crudely disguised as an exercise in seriousness. It is also a spectacle of abject political cowardice masking itself as a demonstration of ‘dissenting’ bravery.”

John Kerry counts as friends people who are more afraid of Donald Rumsfeld than murderous terrorists. Kerry’s friends are people who have more anger towards the President than those who plot to kill, maim and behead Americans. Kerry has wide support in Hollywood where America-hating is not just sport, it is a badge of honor. The “blame America first crowd” is part of Kerry’s bedrock of support. Streisand, Moore and Kerry’s nameless foreign leader friends are only a few examples. This is the crowd that supports Kerry – anti-American foreign leaders and Hollywood extremists. What does that tell us about John Kerry? What would your mother say?

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Mr. Landrith is a graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law, where he was Business Editor of the Virginia Journal of Law and Politics. He had a successful law practice in business and litigation. In 1994 and 1996, Mr. Landrith was a candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives from Virginia's Fifth Congressional District. He served on the Albemarle County School Board. Mr. Landrith is an adjunct professor at the George Mason School of Law. He is recognized as an authority on constitutional law and jurisprudence, federalism, global warming, and property rights.

george@ff.org