In the Stars, Or Only Make-Believe?

One of the awful things about the dog days of summer is that with the political class on vacation, the pundits have nothing to write about and it shows. Its bad enough when theyre analyzing hard news but its far worse when theres no real news to talk about and theyre left to their own devices. The Bush cocaine nonstop nothingness was one such venture, but the world finally tired, and the pundits had to move on.

But move onwhere? To the two presidential frontrunners, quite possibly the two most boring candidates in the history of the republic? I mean, Al Gore and George W. make Dukakis v. Bush in 88 positively electrifying by comparison.

So the pundits wistfully looked for someone, anyone, to energize them. Someone liberal enough to capture their fancy (Bradley?) and charismatic enough to excite them. (Forget Bradley.) A celebrity, perhaps. One who wouldnt be a Reagan Democrat but a Democratic Reagan.

Aha! Warren Beatty!

Oh, how the pundits have sunk.

This nonsense started on August 10, when Arianna Huffington wrote in her syndicated column that an unexpected name is being whispered in terms of a presidential bid and quoted Gary Hart and Bill Moyers as arguing that a Beatty candidacy would raise Crucial (maybe even Vital) Issues. It took an actor to dramatize for conservatives the ideas that changed politics in the early 80s, Moyers remarked. Perhaps another actor can help all Americans see how private money is overwhelming public life.

As Moyers indicates, the widest plank in Beattys platform would advocate complete public financing of all federal campaigns - the rumored candidates own words, from his August 22 New York Times op-ed. (Never mind that if anyone proposed free-speech restrictions for the entertainment industry of the type Beatty would impose on political contributors, Beattys protests would be among the loudest.) The liberal online magazine Salon jumped on the mini-bandwagon with an editorial that claimed Beattys campaign finance reform declaration has cut through the fog in this otherwise snooze-inducing political season.

And some of Beattys Hollywood buddies had their say in the New Yorker. This piece understandably avoided political substance, since there is so little, dealing instead with personal gossip about Beatty mostly his busy premarital sex life. Unsurprisingly, the most foolish-sounding celeb quoted was Oliver Stone, who, apropos of the George W. matter, said, I dont think [Beatty] has ever done a drug in his life. Personally, I wish he had.

Now that weve had our fun, lets puncture this trial balloon before it floats any higher.

Both Huffington and Slates David Plotz have pointed out that the 1998 movie Bulworth, which Beatty directed, co-wrote, and starred in, offers clues as to the policies of a Beatty administration, but their opinions of the film are quite different. According to Huffington, its a scathing indictment of the bankruptcy of our political leadership, whereas Plotz finds it a mess as political scienceincoherent, condescending slop.

Shes wrong and hes right. Beattys character, Sen. Jay Bulworth (D-Calif.) goes on television and states that budget cuts and other governmental indifference force ghetto residents, some of them grade-school-aged, into selling drugs. Moreover, a dope-dealer character mouths the old, debunked allegation that crack was brought to the inner city bythe CIA. If Beatty does run, I hope the first question put to him is, Do you, personally, believe what that drug dealer in Bulworth said about crack and the CIA?

Beatty is not without political weaknesses, at least in Hollywood. He appears to be horrors! - soft on that awful McCarthyite snitch Elia Kazan, joining in the standing ovation when Kazan was given a special Oscar in March. (Kazan directed Beatty in the latters first major film, Splendor in the Grass.)

Besides, Beatty isnt the only actor being advanced by the mortally bored press. George magazine chose actress Sarah Polley for their If I Were President feature in the September issue, and her comments warmed the hearts of everyone whos been depressed since the Sandinistas lost power.

Polley tells George she would try to model myself on the late [Marxist] Chilean president Salvador Allende. She would refus[e] to shake hands with right-wing politicians who stand for policies that favor the rich, attack the poor, and promote racism and division, forbid non-union working environments, and nominate blame-America-alwayser Noam Chomsky for a Cabinet post.

Before the Oliver Stones start cutting their checks, a word of caution to them: Polley is twenty years old (fifteen years under the minimum legal age to run and it shows). Shes also Canadian.

And so the pundits search for the liberal Reagan goes on. Problem is, they ll never find him. What they will never concede, because they simply dont understand, is that it was Reagans message, not his charisma, that won the day.