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Buy the Book
The Book on Hollywood Hypocrisy
Produced and directed by Jason Mattera, and starring a cast of some lousy liberal actors and Obama fronters.
Hollywood Hypocrites: The Devastating Truth About Obama’s
Backers
By Jason Mattera
(Simon & Schuster/Threshold Editions, 272 pages,
$25)
Barack Obama refuses to return Bill Maher’s “c-nt” money.
The HBO host, who has called Sarah Palin a “c-nt” and a “dumb twat,” donated a million dollars to an Obama super PAC. The president, after telephonically checking on the well-being of a Georgetown law student who had been the subject of unchivalrous remarks from Rush Limbaugh, artfully dodged questions at a press conference last week about misogynist speech directed by his supporters toward conservative women. “I’m going to try to lead by example in this situation, as opposed to commenting on every single comment that’s made by either politicians or pundits,” the president explained. “I would be very busy. I would not have time to do my job.”
And without Maher’s million, the president reasons, he might be out of a job.
One could fill a book with such double standards, and indeed Jason Mattera has done just that in Hollywood Hypocrites: The Devastating Truth About Obama’s Backers, a catalog of the Left-Coast Left’s do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do modus operandi.
Bruce Springsteen has the number one album in America. But even the Boss Obama-backer who crusades against the top 1 percent dodging their fair share doesn’t like paying taxes. By reclassifying hundreds of acres on his residence as farmland, the liberal rocker avoids hundreds of thousands of dollars in annual payments to his local government. “By being a fake farmer,” Mattera explains, “the working-class zero Springsteen is making a mint by robbing New Jersey of the antipoverty program funds he says they desperately need.”
An Inconvenient Truth producer Laurie David’s “Martha’s Vineyard mansion has been cited as a serial violator of Massachusetts’s Wetlands Protections Act,” Hollywood Hypocrites shows. Mattera explains how David valued the construction of tennis courts, a barbeque pit, and swimming pools over protecting the environment on her property. If she can’t keep her own environmental house in order, why does she dub SUV drivers “terrorist enablers” and lecture ordinary Americans about the evils of sipping from styrofoam cups?
David’s musings on the eco-unfriendly habits of the American people are found at the Huffington Post, a revolution in media in that its profits derive in large part from not paying its writers. The Robespierre of this revolt of the media haves against the media have-nots is Arianna Huffington. After rolling husband Michael Huffington for millions in a divorce settlement, the California cultist rolled progressives into providing free content to a site that pads her pockets — even as she derides capitalism in books and articles. “She pretended to be a conservative who supported capitalism, then pretended to be a progressive who hated capitalism, then proved to be a master of capitalism who laughed all the way to the bank,” reads Hollywood Hypocrites. The slave-labor suckers who built her media empire didn’t share in the profits of the $315 million sale of the Huffington Post. Socialism is for Huffington’s books, not her business.
The author sees Hollywood as a major reason for the success of the Democratic Party. He suggests that “introducing wedge issues that pit Democratic voters against their Hollywood hypocrite heroes on the one hand, and the progressive values they claim to champion on the other, explodes leftist lies and flips the celebrity’s star power on its head; what was once a positive quickly becomes a negative.”
This appears to be what Friend of Arianna Bill Maher is experiencing over the blowback concerning his Tourette’s-like reaction to conservative women. While Obama grasps his “c-nt” money tightly, his strategist David Axelrod canceled an appearance on Real Time with Bill Maher and the Alabama Democratic Party scrubbed its website of any reference to its “Evening with Bill Maher” fundraiser. Maher derides Republicans as “the kings of false equivalencies” and finds the comparison of his comments with the talk radio king’s “ridiculous.” But condemning Limbaugh while caressing Maher just smacks of bad faith.
In Mattera’s view such ambidextrous principles make Cameron Diaz a “liberal idiot,” Bruce Springsteen a “total fraud,” and Sting a “mega-wealthy nitwit.” La Rochefoucauld saw it differently. “Hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays virtue,” the French aphorist thought.
From this perspective, Bono sheltering his money from taxation, Rosie seeking bodyguards to protect her family with firearms, and Madonna leaving Godzilla’s carbon footprint serve as welcome reinforcement of conservatism from some of its most high-profile critics. Celebrities privately reject the liberal rhetoric that they publicly espouse. When your life can’t possibly match your principles, keep your life and question your principles.
It pays to appear liberal in Hollywood. But in Hollywood, like everywhere else, it doesn’t really pay to practice liberalism.
About the Author
Daniel J. Flynn is the author of Blue Collar Intellectuals: When the Enlightened and the Everyman Elevated America. He blogs at www.flynnfiles.com.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (52) | Leave a comment
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Bill| 3.16.12 @ 6:38AM
Bill Maher is a male prostitute. Tear him up!
benny havens| 3.16.12 @ 7:14AM
In the old days a father, brother, husband or son would take care of business. Todd Palin needs to visit this obnoxious, empty headed, big mouth and spread his nose from ear to ear.
The American Hitman| 3.16.12 @ 8:00AM
Seems obvious he's already had his nose flattened a couple of times.
Trish| 3.16.12 @ 6:20PM
Bingo. His ugly from his insides spread to his ugly mug on the outside.
Dr. X| 3.16.12 @ 9:32AM
When I become Dictator, Bill Maher will be thrown in prison for 20 years, right next to Michael Moore...
One if by land...| 3.16.12 @ 2:47PM
Do not place in prison. Tax payers foot the bill for prisoners. Execute!
Mike Hawk| 3.17.12 @ 10:37AM
Banish him to Cuba, give him a suite at Club Gitmo. He'd fit right in.
Vox populi| 3.16.12 @ 6:45AM
But why don't Conservatives make and support their own movies, movie stars, etc? There are some conservatives with money to do it, they seem to lack the will and initiative.
Robert Pinkerton| 3.16.12 @ 7:06AM
Aside from the fact that they appear with invariant consistency to have more dollars than sense, just who in the Unholy Name of "Saint [bleep!]" are these people that we should value their opinions as excessively as they want?
Eddie N| 3.16.12 @ 8:18AM
Robert Pinketon you hit it dead on with your comment, brother. These Hollyweird clowns are nothing more than useful idiots. Leftists propaganda whores. Nothing more. I pay no attention to any of them. I have more important things, in my life, than to listen to some overpaid, untalented losers badmouth our great country and patriotic Americans.
Hollyweird and the Democatric party have become the present day Robespierre and The French Revolution. We know how, eventually, that ended. God willing, they'll both have the same fate.
Nancy in NC| 3.16.12 @ 9:24AM
It's quite easy to understand...the Hollywood types consider themselves the American "elite" and a number of Americans worship at their feet. Their mantra is "Do as I say, not as I do."
Stuart (Austin, TX)| 3.16.12 @ 9:53AM
"When your life can't possibly match your principles, keep your life and question your principles." That is the wisest thing I have read in a very, very long time. Bravo, Daniel.
Louis Jenkins| 3.16.12 @ 9:59AM
Dear Mr. Flynn:
A great article and a book that I want to read.
JP| 3.16.12 @ 10:07AM
Bill Maher is only filling a business nitche. I had no idea that being a media troll could yield such handsome pay-days. Admit it people, if you knew 20 years ago what you know now, you too would be cashing in on the Progressive Gravy Train. So what if you have to lower your standards into the guttersnipedom of utter vulgarity. Vulgarity pays; liberal vulgarity pays even better.
One if by land...| 3.16.12 @ 2:49PM
Honour has an eternal reward. So, a dollar today or respect for life? Tough one.
JP| 3.16.12 @ 10:12AM
Come to think of it, the last time I watched Bill Maher was a decade ago. The only reason I tuned him in was the fact that he invited PJ O'Rourke. Maher was his typical obnoxious self, and O'Rourke was too polite to join in.
Fredx| 3.16.12 @ 10:23AM
It's already ancient history, but when Maher first announced his million-dollar protection payoff, I thought, "Who does this?" What kind of brazen, self-promoting, tasteless creep goes on TV to announce a political "contribution?" I know that political money is changing hands in Hollywood hand over fist, and we know where most of it's going, but what kind of sellout does this guy have to be?
THKrupp| 3.16.12 @ 10:57AM
Unfortunately this is just human nature. I once had a conversation with a pilot where he was outraged by what he percieved as wasteful spending. 15 minutes later he was outraged that congress was thinking about cutting funds for small regional airports out in the middle of nowhere. Ive seen executives calmly discussing shutting down manufacturing facilites because it was for the good of the company become outraged when they themselves get fired. Its the same with Al Gore and his personal ethics regarding a sustainable lifstyle. He wants everyone except him to live it. Unfortunately most people dont live by what they believe. Im to the point that it doesnt even surprise me anymore. Most people want whatever it is that will get them more money no matter what they actually say.
Michael Crites| 3.16.12 @ 11:29AM
"Unfortunately most people dont live by what they believe."
I would have to disagree. People live exactly what they believe. They just don't say what they believe. They say what they think they're supposed to believe, or what those around them say they're supposed to believe. It's always more instructive to see what folks do that it is to listen to what they say ...
THKrupp| 3.16.12 @ 12:03PM
Ahh yes you are absolutely right. Sorry for using the wrong turn of phrase
Seek| 3.16.12 @ 12:32PM
Bruce Springsteen? Sting? Bill Maher? These aren't movie people (OK, Sting eons ago co-starred in "Dune"). Not everything in the entertainment industry can be lumped under the term "Hollywood."
Nick| 3.16.12 @ 1:29PM
Seek,
You seem to have forgot Maher's acting prowess in such fare as D.C. Cab, House II, and Murder She Wrote.
In other words, he is a two-bit, failed actor.
albert constantine jr.| 3.16.12 @ 2:25PM
I seemed to recall that he had the starring role in the 1991 blockbuster "Pizza Man".
Seek| 3.16.12 @ 4:35PM
I can't comment on Bill Maher's acting, having not seen examples of it, but it's fair to say that if he were a prominent conservative, his minor roles wouldn't be a minus. Indeed, we likely would be hearing endlessly of his "unforgettable" performances, a la Ben Stein in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off."
Nick| 3.16.12 @ 4:58PM
Then you have deprived yourself of some, um, tour de force performances, Seek.
Better search Netflix this weekend.
And, are you telling me that you have never worked the words "Bueller? Bueller?" into a conversation in the past 25 years? I find that incredibly hard to believe.
Ben Stein's performance was classic. It has become part of the cultural lexicon. That was before anyone knew he was a conservative.
So, your argument is wrong.
albert constantine jr.| 3.16.12 @ 10:38PM
In "Ferris Bueller", not only was Ben Stein classic, but the story and the film itself are iconic. John Hughes was a Reagan supporter who "came out" in 1980, while still with National Lampoon.
albert constantine jr.| 3.16.12 @ 10:35PM
I can't say that "Pizza Man" was the worse movie I ever saw, but it was the worse I saw in the era of 1993-1994, and he played the lead character, Elmo Bunn. For a frame of reference, I saw about 300-350 complete movies during that two year period, and dozens more of partially watched films.
The American Spectator | 3.16.12 @ 2:51PM
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Oldefarte| 3.16.12 @ 3:10PM
I know that I'll become intantly disliked by what I'm about to opine, but most all of you here and beyond are hypocrites of sorts in your individualistic personal lives. It's not just Maher or Huffpo, but the entire Hollywood crowd. They produce/direct/promote/market etc all of the movies and TV shows that you [and your families/children/grandchildren etc] watch 24-7 daily [ie Brokeback Mountain promoting homosexuality], and which you allow to be viewed and brainwashed from by yourselves and your immediates. Who among you watches Glee? Whatt about CSI, Law & Order etc? Their contents are filled with socialistic brainwashing materials etc which mentally manipulate you and yours daily. Do you read your local newspapers....same thing [but from liberal journalists instead of Hollywood progressives]. You are all as guilty as say Maher, Springstein, Adriana etc. Why do you all allow yourselves and your immediates to particiapate in such Hollywood produced BS? Why don't you avoid viewing same which would cause a TV ratings [or movie box office] collapse?????????????????
Seek| 3.16.12 @ 4:38PM
Actually, for those who saw "Brokeback Mountain," the movie (and the Annie Proulx short story upon which it was based) did NOT "promote" homosexuality. It certainly didn't have a happy ending for those two guys.
Mike Hawk| 3.17.12 @ 10:53AM
The Hollyweird crowd certainly promoted it that way.
Oldefarte| 3.17.12 @ 2:11PM
Who in their right mind would 'saw'/see that piece of filth?????????????????
Mike Hawk| 3.17.12 @ 10:52AM
I don't watch TV or go to movies. I simply have better things to do with my time such as my activities in Scouting and a fraternal organization that promotes virtue. I particlarly have no interest in perverted productions like 'Buttf**k Mountain and garbage TV shows American Idolatry. I've never seen either and don't plan to.
John Galt| 3.16.12 @ 5:10PM
Sting is English, so his positions and opinions on American politics and policies are irrelevant and unwelcome.
Bono is Irish, so his positions and opinions on American politics and policies are irrelevant and unwelcome.
Tony in Central PA| 3.16.12 @ 9:27PM
" Hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays virtue ".
Nobody today is clear -minded enough to come up with that.
POST American| 3.16.12 @ 11:56PM
-----------------------BOTTOM LINE-----------------------
Anyone wanting to lay hold of the
Hollywood-Tavistock rosetta stone for
American takedown and demoralization
need look NO further than the major
releases during Nick'sON--MAO 1972-73.
Planned, of course, LONG in advance
they covered all bases.
--'Deliverance' was a sex terror vehicle for
the American mainstream ---making them
terrified of 'whiteness' in the form of those
ever troublesome, world destroying backwoods
hillbillies with no running water. ---Again,
got to watch out for them!
Then there was an anomalous musical
'Cabaret' set out there to get the sodomy
and abortion 'decadence' cooking ---on
the very eve of the engineered AIDS
epidemic ---a decades long epidemic that,
BTW, saw no roll back of red light districts,
or even of pornification. A decades long epidemic
that never --EVER called for even a single
round of testing for the public at large!
(REMEMBER that next time Bill Gates is
trying to inject you with his latest round of
'MUST BE" shots!).
Then there was 'Patton', another anomaly
during the still raging Vietnam protest era.
That was grand fetish flag waving ---paving
the way for the mindlessness of FOX and
even the RED China cover op that was
the Reagan era. Very well done of course,
but ---an instrument of deception nonetheless.
Tavistock is thorough ---they cover ALLLL
bases.
MOST KEY was yet another anomaly, the
heavily, heavily promoted 'Godfather' series.
---WHO cared about the nearly defunct mafia
in 1972? -------------NO ONE !
---UNTIL our good friends
at Stanford research and Tavistock cooked
up this gangster revival with a difference.
No more Bogart getting his just deserts.
No 'B' movie --'get 'ems!'
This time it was to be lavishly produced,
couched in luxurious settings and revolving
around 'family values'. Crime does more than
pay in the 'Godfather'. Crime and corruption
--'is the way it is' ---and it's even the subtext of
'family values'.
Very deft handling and released even as
the CFR had sent a Kissinger on the MAO
--and the 'NIX' was ON.
The well crafted begining of the end for
stuffy, decent, hard working and sincere
traditional America.
Capstone TREASON ---and warm EUGENICS
were, from that point on in America, openly
on the move. . . .
"IF we don't realize that the unthinkable
has ALREADY been done to us ---we're fnished."
And finally AGAIN,
take in Hollywood 2012, going into its
second decade of vampire films, retreads,
soft porn, tech worship, cultural incest
and endless predictive programming for the EUGENICS agenda.
Take it in!---on this, the 'overlooked' 60th
Anniversary of the more relevant by the day
-----------------KOREAN WAR-------------------.
AMEN
Claude| 3.18.12 @ 10:53AM
I would imagine that I am not the only reader who skips over this individual's maundering. How can h/she be persuaded that s/he is wasting our time and space?
martin j smith| 3.17.12 @ 8:01AM
I am simply planting a seed for idea that one must come about in order to combat the disease called the MSM. That is boycott TV in some way on large scale, Wether it is one day, one week one month whatever or specific channels or events or programs the only way we have to combat the MSM is thru their pocket book. Reduce their income and thus their power. Actually its like the idea what if there was a program and non one came ? Think about it. Your choice and your hand on the remote which can make a difference.
Yippee K| 3.17.12 @ 8:13AM
It's already happening, Martin. People are fleeing TV en masse and replacing it with on-demand streaming services. In our house we have no TV providers at all. We use a gaming console to access any TV show or movie we want to watch when we want to watch it with minimal advertising. We get news from where-ever we want when we want. And I for one, just never watch the really offensive networks (ABC/NBC/CBS, CNN, MSNBC, HBO, History Channel, and others. I have a list of actors whose films and shows I never watch. I have a list of directors and producers who will never get a dime of my money directly or indirectly. And I couldn't be happier. I've reclaimed my blood pressure and peace of mind. I engage the media on my terms and guess what ... winning!
Yippee K| 3.17.12 @ 8:06AM
There was nothing "unchivalrous" about Rush's comments. He was making a valid point and the Lame Stream spin-doctors went to work on him because contraception is their new abortion. The fact that this author thinks Rush's remarks were "unchivalrous" is proof that (a) he doesn't know Rush or listen to him regularly and (b) he didn't take the time to listen to Rush's Fluke remarks in their context and their entirety.
Bayou Bengal| 3.17.12 @ 9:15AM
What I hope is not lost on the conservative crowd is the fact that the MSM has successfully redirected the narrative to contraception. Remember what started this whole affair? Freedom of Religion, not contraception. We conservatives need to understand this tactic and get the narrative back on track or prepare to loose this battle.
Joellen| 3.17.12 @ 8:42AM
Add to the list Bill Oreilly. He actually defended the THUG, CHRIS ROCK's actions (Rock tried to manhandle a camerawomen and get her camera) when a conservative reporter asked him about his racist remarks about the teaparty. Oreilly, the man who gave Sharpton air time until Sharpton did what he does best, took care of himself and went over to MSLSD (the great Mark Levin's label). Never once do I remember Oreilly giving any of the victims of Sharptons any airtime.
Mike Hawk| 3.17.12 @ 10:56AM
BORe is a media whore too.
Tina B| 3.17.12 @ 9:16AM
Joellen, I agree. O'Reilly is a major pinhead, to use his descriptor. His ego is beyond words. I tune in for moments here and there, to see if he's getting worse. He is.
BTW, MSLSD is pretty cute.
Oldefarte| 3.17.12 @ 2:16PM
Compared to Matthews, Maddow, Shultz, Sharpton, and that fired idiot WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD of the DNC produced MSNBC network, Bill O is a Patriot in my book anyday!!!!!!!!
martin j smith| 3.17.12 @ 9:51AM
O'Reilly is FOX NEWS and they are each others keepers. What else is new. O'Reilley is a cafeteria take what you want and leave the rest.
Sardonikus| 3.17.12 @ 4:29PM
When it comes to homosexuality, I've long held the somewhat liberal opinion that gay people are probably born that way and neither choose nor are driven to be so.
However, in the case of Michael Huffington and his unfortunate choice of spouse, I am definitely having to reconsider this position. ;)
kate| 3.17.12 @ 6:41PM
Bill Maher can go to hell. And I'm canceling HBO for encouraging him by continuing to air his show after his nasty name-calling of women, just because they are women. Shame on all of them.
Marc Jeric| 3.18.12 @ 12:42AM
In France they call those Hollywood bottom feeders "salon communists".
mmercier| 3.18.12 @ 7:50PM
I believe it was Abraham Lincoln who used that statement, regarding his detractors.
Abraham was in the frey of a civil war when that statement was recorded... memory fades...
This being is in the fray of initiating the second.
mmercier| 3.18.12 @ 7:56PM
Fray, Frey... no insult intended to the Nordic pagan diety.
POST American| 3.18.12 @ 11:16PM
"About a decade ago O'Reilly was
--something-- of a GENUINE, hardnosed
reporter. Since his scandal compromized
him a few years ago ---he's turned into
the stalest, most predictable, 'go along
--get along' aging hack on show in the capstone
media franchise slum."
In this ---the 11th hour of the CFR handover
of the American economy, and sovereignty
itself, to the unelected, private, USURY and
EUGENICS front UN -----and, their 'fave'
US taxpayer underwritten and empowered
'---MERE---ICK----CULL' ---RED China
------FORGET the authorized .'EYE---CONs' -------.
REPENT and REDISCOVER the GOD of
your youth.
-----------------HUAC/ Nuremberg 2012--------------