Exit Stage Left - Please
-- No More Affleck user, author

Now that war with Iraq looms large, the Left’s merry band of celebrity fellow travelers is out like a swarm of moths on a klieg light, disparaging the administration, casting aspersions on the military, and feigning grievous umbrage that makes Hamlet look positively upbeat. So far, we’ve heard from the regular cast: Baldwin, Sheen, Streisand, Michael Moore, Julia Roberts. Now Harry Belafonte, another dusty dummy from the crypt of irrelevance, has added his foreign policy insights, which are as useful as the Donner Party’s road map.

This crew is what you get when you drag a copy of the Communist Manifesto through Beverly Hills. As usual, the fawning media, in whom a healthy skepticism is an asset, are stumbling over themselves to give these mannequins a credibility they ill deserve. What makes anyone think that the opinions of these Howlywood harlequins is of any greater weight than that of Gus down at the Laser Lube?

First of all, I’m not sure it takes much talent to be an actor. I know that defies the conventional wisdom, which holds people like Marlon Brando and Robert DeNiro as mortal gods. But frankly I don’t see what talent is required to mumble in the dark or arch an eyebrow or spit a few epithets. Most movies are made in the direction and the editing anyway; the actors are just one tiny part of the production, albeit the most visible one.

But even if I concede that acting is a gift, pray tell how does that endowment extend into every other field of human endeavor? Why does Alec Baldwin’s view on the war with Iraq carry any authority? The fact that Alec Baldwin has occasionally played a military officer or a CIA agent does not mean that Alec Baldwin knows the Manual of Arms or cryptography. I played a Roman centurion in my junior high Christmas play. Does that mean I’m entitled to share in Caesar’s riches? Did “Tootsie” make Dustin Hoffman a transvestite?

We’re told that actors “research” their roles, and that lends them a perspective the ordinary person might not have. Yes, if that average person is sweat-glued to his Lazy Boy and never reads a book or watches anything more elevating than “World’s Worst Lawns.” The research actors do could be done by any citizen with a PC and Google. My guess is it pales beside the investigations conducted by our intelligence community. I don’t suspect Baldwin has access to the same satellite observations the CIA does.

There are few earthly glories more fleeting than those of the footlight. Monday’s Oscar winner could find himself making balloon animals by Friday, and his leading lady could be turning tricks outside the bus station for the price of a tuna sandwich. Do you see Leonardo DiCaprio headlining anywhere these days? Wasn’t that Kim Basinger selling Abdominizers at the mall last weekend? That leads me to believe that, whatever the degree of “art” required in the movie business, it has little in it that endures. I’m not sure what the value of transient talent is, but a virtue that ephemeral hardly commands much respect.

Besides, the lifestyle of these buffoons makes their opinions irrelevant. What matter is the ranting of a spoiled diva who awakens from a drug-induced slumber at 3 in the afternoon, to “breakfast” on hummingbird eggs and Malaysian kelp squeezin’s? Then it’s off to two hours with a “personal trainer” who ensures that exercise addresses those flaws the surgeon can’t. A quick “brunch” with her business agent ­ you know, the guy who pays all her bills for her ­ and then it’s on to a fitting at X Pensivo’s, whose fall footwear line costs more than a working man’s house. Back to the mansion to “read some scripts,” which basically involves having the maid read them for her. Her dope dealer drops by with the week’s Happy Sample, which she’ll need later on over at the Baldwins’ Mazola party. And the caviar delivery is waiting out by the boathouse.

Oh yeah, her press agent called. Sally Jesse has her booked for an interview next Tuesday in New York. The limo will take her to the airport at 4; the jet leaves at 5. The subject of the interview is the Republicans’ cavalier attitude toward poverty.

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