{"id":5492,"date":"2005-10-10T12:28:35","date_gmt":"2005-10-10T16:28:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=5492"},"modified":"2005-10-10T12:28:35","modified_gmt":"2005-10-10T16:28:35","slug":"celebrity-worship-gone-awry-part-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/celebrity-worship-gone-awry-part-ii\/","title":{"rendered":"Celebrity-worship gone awry — Part II"},"content":{"rendered":"

In last month’s edition of Celebrity-worship gone awry, I marveled<\/a> at the fact that Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, would rely on “expert” testimony from a novelist<\/a> when shaping federal environmental policies.<\/p>\n

This month, it’s the Bush administration rewarding an actor with a prestigious diplomatic post.<\/p>\n

On Friday, the White House announced that the president has nominated Ron Silver<\/a> (yes, that<\/i><\/a> Ron Silver) to be a member of the Board of Directors of the United States Institute of Peace through 2009. The man who plays “Bruno Gianelli,” a Dem-turned-Republican consultant on TV’s West Wing, is now getting to dabble in real-world policy.<\/p>\n

Given the circumstances, there may be a little payback<\/a> at hand.<\/p>\n

The actor Ron Silver was leaving a cocktail party at the Four Seasons restaurant on Monday evening, headed for Madison Square Garden, when he ran into Henry A. Kissinger, whom he once played in a made-for-television movie. They greeted each other warmly, but as they shook hands, Mr. Kissinger raised a quizzical eyebrow and said, in his distinctive, German-tinted rasp, “What are you doing being a Republican?”<\/p>\n

It was the question of the night for Mr. Silver, who has long been known as a liberal Democrat, but who spoke from the podium on Monday, the opening night of the Republican National Convention. […] On Monday there was no such social disdain, but there was some surprise.<\/p>\n

Running into Al Franken, the comedian and liberal talk show host, at the Four Seasons party on Monday, Mr. Silver said, “I’m speaking tonight.”<\/p>\n

Puzzled, Mr. Franken asked, “For Bush?”<\/p>\n

Reinforcing the point, Mr. Silver replied, “I’m speaking.”<\/p>\n

“For Bush?” Mr. Franken said.<\/p>\n

“I’m speaking,” Mr. Silver said again.<\/p>\n

“For Bush?” Mr. Franken said.<\/p>\n

As Mr. Silver excused himself, Mr. Franken was asked his reaction.<\/p>\n

“It’s crazy,” he said, and his facial expression made the case that he really thought so.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In last month’s edition of Celebrity-worship gone awry, I marveled at the fact that Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, would rely on “expert” testimony from a novelist when shaping federal environmental policies. This month, it’s the Bush administration rewarding an actor with a prestigious diplomatic post. On […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5492"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5492\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}