Roman Around

When entertainers speak of morality, it’s like listening to fat person laud the benefits of one-calorie soda.

These are the overlords of hypocrisy who fling poison darts at President Bush  – by now, a matter of involuntary reflex – for keeping the United States safe from terror attacks since September 11, 2001. At the same time, these are the same intellectual lightweights who are out to lunch on human rights abuses in Iran, China and Saudi Arabia. They tediously condemn the liberation of Iraq, despite our impending victory there, as a play for oil and a show of American imperialism but fail to wrinkle a nose hair at modern day slavery in Africa, genocide in Rawanda and the forced “castration” of females in Islamic world (clitorectomies).

Enter one of the more vapid heroes of the American Leftocracy, Robert Redford.

Yesterday, after Barack Obama named Ken Salazar to be the next Secretary of the Interior, Redford, who was speaking via satellite at the National Press Club on behalf of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, applauded the decision.

No big deal there.

But, of course, being the anti-Bush reactionary automoton he is, he just couldn’t resist the impulse to inappropriately throw in an ill-timed dig (or three) about President Bush and Vice President Cheney – a move entirely extraneous and classless.

Redford called the President “sneaky,” “devious” and “morally criminal.”

How elegant. How dignified.

“Bush may be a lame duck, but he knows how to quack,” said Redford. He warned: “We should not leave one more debt” of the Bush administration for Obama to fix.

“These lands are part of our legacy … not Cheney’s and Bush’s,” he continued. “[They've] been trashing the environment since they came in, like it was their prerogative.”

But he was just getting warmed up: On top of Redford’s criticisms of the Bush administration’s environmental policies, he called Bush “morally criminal” on three separate occasions and said he “was shocked about how devious and sneaky” Bush has been while in office.

No accountability necessary, naturally. Redford is, after all, a man who cares.

Recall, this is a man who was said to have gone scuba diving at one time with Fidel Castro -  a murderous totalitarian dictator.

And yet, it is President Bush who is a moral criminal.

Wouldn’t it have been nice to hear one person at the National Press Club – just one – ask him:

“Exactly how, Mr. Redford, have the President and Vice President trashed the environment? By all accounts, their record has been very pro-environment. Can you elaborate, sir?”

I also want taxes to go down in New York and wouldn’t mind peace on Earth (with provisions).

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