WHY DO REPUBLICANS DENIGRATE ACTORS IN POLITICS?

The irony must be striking everyone, but I haven't seen it mentioned in print, on broadcast, or in blogtopia (yes! Skippy invented the term). Ronald Reagan, former president of the United States, was an actor for most of his life. The Republicans worship him, the media cantonizes him, and right-wing talk radio rates him just a little lower than the angels. George Murphy, former U.S. Senator(R) from California, was a Hollywood song-and-dance man. Fred Grandy (Gopher on The Love Boat) became a Republican Congressman from his home state Iowa.

Yet little more than a year ago, Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, Susan Sarandon, Martin Sheen, the Dixie Chicks, and other serious, accomplished actors and entertainers were castigated, even vilified, by Republican/right-wing representatives as unAmerican, even traitorous for opposing the proposed invasion of Iraq. And, interestingly, almost none are Democrats -- they are mostly Libertarians.

Dennis Miller has been rewarded for his switch to Republican politics with a (dismal) show on MSNBC. Michael Moore, it is charged, has been rewarded for his anti-Bush documentary Fahrenheit 911 with the top film award at Cannes (those French just love to humiliate the U.S.-- oops! only one of the nine-person judging panel was French). Bill O'Reilly is the former TV tabloid host of Inside Edition, and has been a huge ratings success for Fox. Every day entertainers, actors and hard-to-define celebrities are giving voice to their political positions. And why not? Only the Republicans seem to have a double standard regarding this issue. I've never heard a Democrat challenge the right to any actor's asserting his/her privilege of free speech. I've never heard a credible Democrat oppose an entertainer's stance merely on the basis of the entertainer's profession.

And this is just one of the more obvious of the hypocrises practiced by the GOP. If you're an entertainer and a Republican, you're an American hero. If you're a non-Republican and an entertainer, you have the right to free speech, but you're anti-American and deserve whatever vilification and boycott campaigns they can devise.