EDITOR’S NOTE: This article appears in the February 23, 2004, issue of National Review.
If you Google the words “lots and lots of Hollywood Republicans,” you get about 58,900 hits, which just goes to show you that the Internet is really one big swamp of wishful thinking, political and pornographic. Because the truth is, even if you allot one Google hit per Hollywood Republican, you’ve still got about 58,885 hits too many.
About every four years, Republican fundraisers and strategists lose contact with reality and declare “impressive inroads” into the Hollywood community. “A lot of Hollywood stars and industry professionals are really supportive of the Republican agenda,” some glassy-eyed Republican mouthpiece will declare, with Moonie-like cheerfulness. “I’ve gotten a lot of phone calls from some major names in the business,” some Republican fantasist will chirp to some lazy, gullible reporter, “and let me tell you, they’re interested in knowing just what this party is all about!“
It’s a bit like poor Robert McFarlane, back in the Reagan administration, who arrived in Tehran on a secret mission to make “impressive inroads” with “Iranian moderates,” clutching a Bible and a cake in the shape of a key. Except in McFarlane’s case, there probably were some moderates around there, somewhere. And they probably ate the cake, too, since Persians are famous for their sweet tooth and aren’t as obsessed as some of us out here in Hollywood are about sugar and carbs.
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