Redstate

Noblesse oblige

By blackhedd Posted in Democrats — Comments (0) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

Ladies and gentlemen, I do hate to pile on (not). Also, out of modesty and good taste, I must refrain from saying "I told you so" in so many words, so I'll just let you connect the dots. But l'affaire Geffen is starting to pick up momentum. See CaliforniaYankee's excellent take here. And as I pointed out here, the key takeaway from the scandale entre nous is that both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are being used as pawns in a larger and more important struggle. That would be the struggle for power and influence in Hollywood.

Keep reading...

Read this piece from the New York Times' David Carr. No doubt his newspaper is interested in keeping the scandal spinning, since their very own Maureen Dowd kicked it off with the original Geffen "get." But observe the admiration for Geffen's impeccable timing:

Instead, the conversation [at a pre-Oscar bash at Arianna Huffington's house] was all about the media mogul David Geffen’s drive-by maiming of the Clintons earlier in the week in remarks he made to Maureen Dowd of The New York Times. For over an hour, the people at the table debated his decision to take on Hillary Clinton, who is pursuing the Democratic nomination for president.
...
Calling the former president a “reckless guy” deftly put the issue of Bill Clinton’s behavior in the present tense. And at a moment when some of the smart money was poised to line up behind Mrs. Clinton’s candidacy, Mr. Geffen was signaling that backing her may not be so smart after all.

You have to hand it to him: here it was, Oscar weekend, and at least nobody was talking about the failure of “Dreamgirls,” Mr. Geffen’s pet project, to get a best picture nomination.

“David Geffen gave voice to the collective unconscious of many people here,” said Ms. Huffington, whose opposition to the Iraq war and Mrs. Clinton’s candidacy has been on display on the Huffington Post Web site for some time. “The story would have been dead in a day if he was just speaking for himself, but these things are on everybody’s mind.”

Note the not-so-subtle ranking going on here. Hollywood, a town that lives and dies by an exquisite pecking order even more elaborate that that of Washington, DC, is called to observe that Monsieur Geffen can accomplish in one sentence what Madame d'Huffington can't in weeks of blog-flogging.

But this is where it gets really interesting:

No one is expecting Mr. Geffen to spend his days golfing, but there is a danger that if the coming election becomes his full-time hobby, his precision ruthlessness will distort the public process. After all, this is not a movie sale, a busted deal or a Don Henley album; this is about the duly elected leader of the United States.

Mr. Geffen and Ron Burkle, another Los Angeles billionaire who is a staunch ally of the Clintons, have already fought for custody of The Los Angeles Times. No one wants to see the presidency treated as a cat toy between rich men who don’t like to lose.

“I think that America was better served when the candidates were chosen in smoke-filled rooms,” Mr. Geffen told Ms. Dowd.

Le chat is now out of the proverbial bag. The White House is a toy to be fought over by rich men, just as I pointed out to you the other day. America was better served when smarter people than voters picked the leadership, according to Geffen. Wouldn't he love to get those days back? (All but the... ahem, cigars, of course.) And notice that in all of this there is not the slightest consideration given to the half of the country that, on ideological grounds, would prefer not to buy what either Burkle or Geffen is selling.

Doesn't it bother you, gentle reader, that Hollywood's dukes and duchesses so take for granted their power to choose whom you will elect to the leadership of the United States, that they fight among themselves over the privilege to do so? Isn't this what a regime plus ancien might have considered the arrogance of aristocracy?