Politically Inept

by Steven Menashi

Recently, in Paris, Jack Lang, former French minister of culture, penned a condemnatory public missive aimed at Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr. The statement, which attacked Starr as a “fanatical prosecutor with unlimited power” who is orchestrating “inquisitorial harassment” of President Clinton, was signed by about 100 notables, including Oliver Stone, Woody Allen, Sofia Loren, Vanessa Redgrave, Jeremy Irons, and Art Garfunkel. One naturally wonders why anyone cares what Art Garfunkel or Vanessa Redgrave think about politics. What is evident, however, is that many people do.

Thus, none other than Alec Baldwin finds himself a player in New York politics — with talk of a Senate run, no less — and host to President Clinton at his Long Island home. “It's no secret that you are very political,” TV host Conan O'Brien commented to Baldwin on the December 11, 1998 episode of Late Night. “You are a very political person. It's no secret that you have actually had some associations with the Clintons. That you're a liberal man and I thought you know today, this is a historic day and you're one of the most politically active actors out there. What do you think?”

Baldwin replied: “I was in Africa. I go to Africa. I mean ladies and gentlemen I am in Africa. For three months I am in the bush and I come back. I come back here and I come back to what? I mean what is happening right now as we speak? Right now the Judiciary Committee, the President has an approval rating of 68 percent. The President is very popular and things are going pretty good and they are voting to impeach the President. They voted on one article of impeachment already. And I come back from Africa to stained dresses and cigars and this and impeachment. I am thinking to myself in other countries they are laughing at us twenty four hours a day and I'm thinking to myself if we were in other countries, we would all right now, all of us together, all of us together would go down to Washington and we would stone Henry Hyde to death! We would stone him to death! Wait! Shut up! Shut up! No shut up! I'm not finished. We would stone Henry Hyde to death and we would go to their homes and we'd kill their wives and their children. We would kill their families. What is happening in this country? What is happening?”

Four days later, at an anti-impeachment rally at New York University, Baldwin described the impeachment proceedings as a “coup d'état” carried out by the “sociopaths who run Congress” and orchestrated by tobacco and insurance companies hell bent on avenging George Bush's 1992 defeat.

Baldwin's support for the President was not unqualified, however. He faulted Mr. Clinton for “rolling back anti-trust regulation.”

Of course, the Clinton Administration has done no such thing — just ask Bill Gates. Indeed, Baldwin's analysis of the impeachment proceedings consists of nothing more than an exhortation to bludgeon to death the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and his family, lots of clichés and uninformed hyperbole, and some grand theater.

Why do we look to actors for sociopolitical analysis, anyway? After all, they're entertainers; they deliver, well, theater. One recalls innumerable instances of performers attempting to wax philosophic on current events, like when the revelry of the MTV Video Music Awards was interrupted by the Spice Girls' eulogy for Princess Diana or the Beastie Boys' pleas for an end to American missile attacks on suspected terrorist camps.

Such commentary invariably seems absurdly out of place — not to mention uninformed — and uncomfortably awkward to watch.

ABC Network has a treat for all those viewers who cringe whenever Academy Award recipients use their acceptance speech to sound off on the important matters of the day. Every weekday evening, following Nightline, we get a full half-hour of political discussion from the Hollywood glitterati, hosted by comedian Bill Maher, whose film credits include "Ratboy" and "Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death."

George magazine tells us that Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher “may change the way America watches politics.” If that's true, it's bad news for American politics — if the show's November 30 episode is any indication.

On that particular show, Maher mentioned a court case in which a man is suing his female partner, who allegedly stopped taking birth control without informing him (one of the weighty issues they debate on Politically Incorrect ).

After some semen jokes from Stephanie Miller and some witty repartee from LeVar Burton (“he's having sex with a woman — shut up, be thankful”), actor Corbin Bernsen was prompted to this deep insight:

“We are kind of like soup, you know, we were talking about this earlier. We're kind of like soup. And we're not done cooking yet. You know, it's like all this stuff is coming up. I kind of look at it like, okay, great, let them try. We're trying to figure it all out. We're just trying to figure — we talked about like the civil rights movement 30 years ago or whatever. People expect tomorrow for it to be finished. It's not, it's hundreds and hundreds of years —.”

Unfazed, Maher used the comment as a lead-in to his next segment after the commercial break: “All right. You mentioned the civil rights movement and all that. Let me bring this up because there's a big controversy now going on in New Hampshire at Dartmouth. They had — a fraternity up there did what they call a ghetto party, where the kids in the fraternity wore — they played rap music, they wore afros, they carried toy guns.”

Maher's account is inaccurate. There were no toy guns. Only one party-goer sported an afro. As Congressman Joe Scarborough mentioned on Politically Incorrect, however, no less than President Clinton wore an afro wig at a party on Martha's Vineyard; “it may have shown a lack of judgment, but it doesn't really tell you what he thinks about race relations.” Nevertheless, Maher condemned Dartmouth College as racist: “At Dartmouth, which is the providence [sic] of `Animal House' as we all remember, has been known to be somewhat, I don't want to say racist, but sort of backward in their liberal thinking, perhaps.”

LeVar Burton chimed in with, “I have not had a Caucasian party.” Of course, this is not a fitting comparison. A more appropriate analogy would be Mr. Burton and some guests dressing in plaid shirts and overalls, sporting banjos and straw hats, and country-line-dancing to Billy Ray Cyrus. He could call it a “country party.” Such an event, however, would be far too commonplace and unoffensive to have any real entertainment value for Politically Incorrect. On that program, theater trumps intellectual honesty every time. Stephanie Miller one-upped Burton, suggesting that “Maybe they should have overprivileged white preppie parties.” So much for combating stereotypes.

Corbin Bernsen attempted more than cute soundbytes as he grew contemplative once more: “I'm going to take the side of this, I have to ask you directly though because you don't know until you find out. If I told you that I'm as open-minded as — if I was, and I did that and I still had fun and had a party and it was kind of a theme party, but you knew me, can we ever get to a day where somebody could do that? You can't just let it all go. We can both joke about each other's side. We can all have fun with each other and not be sensitive to it.”

Bill Maher has his own explanation for Clinton's popularity, which has garnered much media attention. “I said Clinton was the right President because he's full of shit and we're full of shit,” Maher told Mother Jones.

His keen observation also provides a rather good explanation of the popularity of a television show that solicits political commentary from Meat Loaf, Dweezil Zappa, Ted Nugent, and Kato Kaelin. TV Guide has deemed Politically Incorrect “the best talk show on television.”

The ratings demonstrate its popularity; the show enjoys almost as many viewers as Meet the Press and This Week combined. Why is Politically Incorrect the “right” talk show? Bill Maher knows why. And now so do Dartmouth students.

Which doesn't mean that Politically Incorrect isn't great fun; it may be. But meaningful discourse it's not.

Maher confesses that “We're competing with the entertainment shows, as an entertainment show,” but still insists that “I raise some hopes of brain activity.” “There's a lot more meat on bone,” Maher explained to Entertainment Weekly, “stuff for people to think about.” Maher thus claims intellectual credibility for the showbiz talk on his show.

Thus, an off-hand remark, made solely for its entertainment value, is taken as considerate and serious commentary. But they're entertainers; they deliver theater.