If George Clooney has anything, it’s the audacity. Last summer, Clooney authored a NY Times column (rumored to be ghostwritten) about how Joe Biden was too old to be president and there should be a mini-primary to select the next Democratic presidential nominee, because VP Kamala Harris was obviously not the next in line. Between Clooney’s column and Nancy Pelosi’s machinations, the entire election cycle changed in the course of a couple of weeks. I will never forget the way these people treated Pres. Biden OR Kamala Harris. Clooney is on my permanent sh-tlist. He stayed quiet for a few months, but he’s currently promoting the Broadway adaptation of Good Night and Good Luck. Clooney is taking over the Edward R. Murrow role (David Strathairn played Murrow in the film, which was directed by Clooney). To promote this mess, Clooney spoke to Maureen Dowd at the NYT. Some highlights:
Playing Murrow: “I always felt like there was a sadness to Murrow, and that was not something that you could associate with me at 40 years old,” he said. Now he has to turn back the clock and cover his salt-and-pepper mane with black dye. “My wife is going to hate it because nothing makes you look older than when an older guy dyes his hair. My kids are going to just laugh at me nonstop.”
The Trump era: “You take a narrative, you make it up, don’t worry about facts, don’t worry about repercussions.” He said the play “feels more like it’s about truth, not just the press. Facts matter. [But] No rules count anymore. It’s like letting an infant walk across the 405 freeway in the middle of the afternoon.”
Explaining the 2016 election: “I believe that whole idea of the arc of history bending toward justice, and I know it doesn’t feel that way right now. I think there are always these pendulum swings. The first Trump election was, I believe, a result of eight years of a Black president.”
Explaining the 2024 election: “The Biden administration was terrible at explaining that we’re a world economy, where we were actually doing better than all the other G7 countries. They were bad at telling the story because their messenger was not working at his best, to say the least.”
On Trump: “He was a New York guy. He’d be at a restaurant and he’d be like, ‘What’s the name of that cocktail waitress?’” Trump even suggested a doctor who might help Clooney with an injury he had suffered on the set of “Syriana,” the film that netted him a best supporting actor Oscar. He added, “We’ve got to hope that he can have that Scrooge night where he wakes up and there are some ghosts of Christmas there that say, ‘There’s some good things you can do for people.’”
Another Biden story: Last June, Clooney and Obama appeared at a glittery L.A. fund-raiser that raised $28 million for President Joseph R. Biden Jr. When Biden appeared to freeze onstage, Obama led him away. Clooney was gobsmacked. “I saw him for hours a year earlier at the Kennedy Center, and I saw someone much less sharp” that night, Clooney said. “I’ve always liked Joe Biden, and I like him still.”
Writing the NYT op-ed: But after Biden’s debate meltdown, Clooney wrote a guest essay for The New York Times urging Biden to step aside. People thought Obama was behind it, but Clooney said he did it despite being urged not to. Many Democrats were grateful to Clooney, who said publicly what they were panicking about in private. Biden, then 81, had promised to be “a bridge” but was stubbornly clinging to power. But Biden’s cordon sanitaire at the White House and some other Democrats were angry at the actor. The piece sparked a debate about whether celebrities should have such high-profile roles in a party that is already perceived as rich, coastal and out of touch. Biden abdicated his responsibility by hiding his incapacities, Clooney told me, and “the media, in many ways, dropped the ball.”
Several things I’d like to say, in no particular order. The anger I had (and still have) for Clooney is the way he and others were eager to pass over VP Harris in all of their nonsensical fantasies about replacing Biden. I continue to be outraged that there was all of this smoke for Biden’s advanced age and those people wouldn’t say one f–king word about Trump’s very obvious mental and physical decline. I continue to be disgusted that people like Clooney weren’t taking the threat of another Trump term seriously – they were like children fighting over a shiny toy, rather than adults justifiably terrified of how bad a second Trump term would be. They should have been locked in to do anything to ensure a Democratic victory, and they just weren’t. Clooney’s explanation that Biden was too old to explain why the American economy was doing well makes no sense either – the media refused to give Biden credit where credit was due, with the NYT (Clooney’s outlet of choice) running daily stories minimizing the galloping success of the Biden economy. Anyway, long story short, Clooney can choke and I hope his play bombs.
Photos courtesy of Cover Images.
