Celebutards

by Andrea Peyser

  Robert Redford (born Charles Robert Redford, Jr., on August 18, 1936, in Santa Monica, California) has an energy problem. The filmmaker and ardent environmentalist moans about administration failures to combat global warming and reduce the use of fossil fuels, while presiding over an SUV-locked Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, several hours and many Lear jet rides away from the homes of anyone in the movie industry. John Tierney of the New York Times sensibly suggested that if Redford cared about the environment, he’d move his festival to New York, which would “spare [movie-makers] a trip, enrich our economy and save energy.” Redford, however, persists in owning an environmentally unfriendly, remote and pricey ski resort.

  Rob “Meathead” Reiner (born Robert Singer Reiner on March 6, 1947, in the Bronx, New York), a film director best known for playing Archie Bunker’s son-in-law “Meathead” on the sitcom All in the Family, sponsored California’s Proposition 10, which slapped a 50-cent tax on packs of cigarettes to pay for programs for children under five. The Los Angeles Times reported that 20 percent of the $700 million a year raised from the tax was spent on a “First Five Commission” run by, you guessed it, Rob Reiner. To that end, Reiner has awarded hundreds of millions to advertising and public-relations firms, in part to fund campaigns to pass new initiatives, including Proposition 82, which would have taxed high-earners for preschool. (It failed at the ballot box.) Reiner had to quit as head of the commission amid mounting criticism. Was this money well-spent? Or political patronage and waste levied by a rich liberal with little to do? You decide.

  Jerry Seinfeld (born Jerome Seinfeld on April 29, 1954, in Brooklyn, New York) must ask his wife for permission to leave the house more often. Some questioned the faded ’90s sitcom star’s sanity in 2007, when he told David Letterman that a cookbook author was a “wacko” and potential serial killer. Why? Because many have suggested the author, Missy Chase Lapine, who wrote The Sneaky Chef—which tells how to hide pureed vegetables in kids’ food—was plagiarized by Seinfeld’s wife, Jessica, in her tome, Deceptively Delicious.

  “Now you know, having a career in show business, one of the fun facts of celebrity life is wackos will wait in the woodwork to pop out at certain moments of your life to inject a little adrenaline into your life experience,” Seinfeld said, comparing Lapine with Letterman’s now-deceased stalker, as well as with a man who plotted to kidnap Letterman’s son.

  Like a tot on a sugar rush, Seinfeld noted Lapine used three names. “If you read history, many of the three-name people do become assassins,” he said.” Mark David Chapman. And you know, James Earl Ray. So that’s my concern.” Chapman gunned down John Lennon, but wrote no known cookbooks. James Earl Ray assassinated Martin Luther King Jr. and also never penned a cookbook.

  Never having actually watched a program helmed by Keith Olbermann (born January 27, 1959 in New York), I am at a loss as to what gifts this influential (in his own mind) lefty has bestowed upon the universe. But Olbermann, who drew the ire of the Anti-Defamation League for repeatedly using the Nazi salute while referring to people he doesn’t like, has nonetheless rewarded me. He named me his “Worst Person in the World” in 2006, after I reported on a loud conversation I overheard in which he envied Fox newscaster Bill O’Reilly’s superior ratings, and guffawed as a pal scorned colleague Connie Chung as a death-defying “cockroach.” Olbermann said that was meant as a “compliment.” Thanks for keeping it real!

  Some people get divorced. Others transform their lives and ideologies in the process of ridding themselves of a toxic spouse. Arianna Huffington (born Arianna Stassinopoulos on July 15, 1950, in Athens, Greece) says she was simply a “former right-winger who has evolved into a compassionate and progressive populist,” as if such a shape-change overcame her during breakfast. She went from conservative to uber-liberal after her embarrassing divorce from former United States Senator Michael Huffington, who disclosed his bisexuality (a 1999 GQ profile declared that she knew of his sexual interest in men all along). Following the split, she became a wealthy woman from her ex’s oil money, free to start the leftist online vanity sheet, The Huffington Post, which publishes the liberal musings of every manner of celebrity and deep thinker, from Alec Baldwin to Cindy Sheehan. Her biography on Maria Callas was the subject of a plagiarism scandal (settled out of court). These days, Huffington, with her charming accent and good hair, is a constant on the speaker’s circuit, where leftists are in great demand.

  And this book could not be complete without:

  Jane “Hanoi Jane” Fonda (born December 21, 1937), the grandmother of the modern celebutard set, whose treasonous pose on an anti-aircraft battery in Hanoi during the Vietnam War in 1972 was credited by John McCain as earning him extra torture as a prisoner of war. In 2008, she used the word “c*nt,” live, on the Today show while discussing her role in the Vagina Monologues—crudely and inadvertently crystallizing what so many have thought of her for decades.

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  THOUGHT I FORGOT ABOUT THESE CELEBUTARDS? GUESS AGAIN.

  Michelle Obama. What’s the matter, Michelle? Did the White House food taster quit?

  Michelle Obama really, really likes life in the White House, what with all the toadies and underlings scampering under foot. The mystery is how did she ever manage before life as Mrs. President?

  Here’s what she said about her “current life” in the White House: “[It is] a very blessed situation, because I have what most families don’t have—tons of support all around, not just my mother, but staff and administration. I have a chief of staff and a personal assistant, and everyone needs that.”

  She could have stopped there…or not…

  “Everyone should have a chief of staff and a set of personal assistants,” Mrs. O gushed.

  But wait, there is a punchline: These lines were spoken at a conference on “Corporate Voices for Working Families” in Washington. Working families who, presumably, don’t actually know what a chief of staff does.

  Perhaps chiefs of staff for the spoiled First Lady in your life will inspire a new growth industry in a time of recession. Still, I have to wonder: Who does the laundry for the chief?

  Janeane Garofalo is an unreconstructed, unapologetic racist.

  Yet the uncouth actress will never be punished, vilified, or marginalized, because she openly disparaged the one ethnic group that enjoys no Hollywood protection. That would be white people. Particularly, white people from the South.

  What do you think would happen should anyone turn the tables, reverse the races, change the geography, and denigrate an urban person of color? The conservatives I know do not resort to gutter talk.

  For her bold and unbridled racism—offenses that are sure to draw deafening applause by the American left—Janeane Garofalo is the epitome of Celebutardism. Given a forum to comment on the previous day’s tea parties, in which hundreds of thousands of conservatives gathered to protest President Obama’s tax policies, she had the gall to declare:

  “This is about hating a black man in the White House.” Huh?

  “This is racism straight up.” She was just getting started:

  “That is nothing but a bunch of teabagging rednecks. And there is no way around that. And you know, you can tell these type of right-wingers anything and they’ll believe it, except the truth. You tell them the truth and they become—it’s like showing Frankenstein’s monster fire. They become confused and angry and highly volatile. That guy, causing them feelings they don’t know, because their limbic brain, we’ve discussed this before, the limbic brain inside a right-winger or Republican or conservative or your average white power activist, the limbic brain is much larger in their head space than in a reasonable person, and it’s pushing against the frontal lobe. So their synapses are misfiring. Is Bernie Goldberg listening?”

  So there it is. Anyone who believes higher taxes would be ruinous to this country is deemed dangerous. Anyone who disagrees with any policy Obama might enact is racist.

  Not just racist, but a “teabagging
redneck.” That sure shuts down the debate before it can get off the ground. Which is the entire point.

  I think I’ll have a T-shirt printed. “Teabagging Redneck Against Taxes.”

  I wonder if Janeane would try to lock me up?

  After winning the Oscar for Shakespeare in Love, Gwyneth Paltrow has been shamefully idle. (Shallow Hal, anyone?) Even her latest film, Two Lovers, co-starring Joaquin Phoenix, premiered, depressingly unnoticed, at the Sunshine Cinema on New York’s Lower East Side.

  But Gwyneth, who moved to London after declaring, “We’re all going to die when George Bush has his way,” is far from allergic to taking home our money. Nor is the lady, bred in an exclusive Manhattan private school, opposed to reinventing herself in a curiously American kind of career: lifestyle guru.

  Gwyneth has developed a website that is equal parts new-age philosophy, serious commerce, and whatever ramblings enter the star’s golden head. She is e-mailing related newsletters that recommend exorbitantly priced American restaurants—chef Mario Batali is a fave—push pricy products, and plug hotels in which a standard room begins at $695 a night. She’s also shilling for a yoga gym she’s planning to open.

  The site is called Goop.com, a name based on Gwyneth’s initials, GP. It is heavy on Kabbalah musing with its mantra, “Nourish the inner aspect,” whatever than means. It even—hold onto your lunch—describes the very icky effects of Gwyneth’s personal detoxifying diet.

  Gwyneth, who blames her age, 36, for the dearth of recent roles (Kate Winslet, Helen Mirren, and Meryl Streep might differ), has developed a site aimed appallingly at women who have the time, money and will to give up essential caffeine and shop all day—or rather, hire someone to shop for them. The Toronto Globe and Mail wrote, “Why is it called ‘Goop’? Perhaps ‘Any Old Load of Rubbish’ and “Learn from Me, Ungrateful Peasant,’ were both taken.” Even the ordinarily fatuous New York Times called the site “fatuous and a bit puzzling” in a recent piece, which sent Gwyneth into orbit.

  She said in response, “I think the people who are criticizing it or criticizing the idea of it don’t really get it, because if they did, they would like it. I think that people like to stay in their box. They like people to stay how they are comfortable seeing them.”

  Oprah, of course, is agog at Gwyneth’s post-pregnancy workout, which the faded star displayed on the O’s television program.

  In the meantime, Gwyneth has signed on to write a cookbook. (Can you say, organic?)

  Food is much on Gwyneth’s mind these days, a year after she underwent a “master cleanse” (lots of lemon water and little else) and was promptly taken overnight by her husband, Coldplay’s Chris Martin, to Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York. (She blamed a mysterious “gastrointestinal” ailment for the hospitalization.)

  Her post-holiday cleanse this year was far less punishing, including chicken and smoothies, but no dairy or cappuccinos.

  I never thought I’d read these words coming from the aristocratic Gwyn’s hand. But here is they are:

  “If your bowel movements get sluggish, you can accelerate things by drinking half a cup of castor oil or using a mild herbal laxative. Bowel elimination is paramount for correct detoxification.”

  Sluggish bowel movements aside, Gwyneth, who once declared America too dangerous for her kids, Apple and Moses, seems to be tiring of London. She whined to Marie Claire magazine that the city is too dirty, the weather atrocious, and the service not up to her standards.

  “My husband thinks I’m way too obsessed with cleanliness and germs. I’m just like, ‘The street is filthy, could we take off our shoes before we come into the house?’ He used to imitate me and say, “Ewwww, oh my God!’ Also, the customer service is just rubbish in England. People are much more relaxed there, and things take forever to get done. They’ll tell you it’ll take two weeks for your Internet service to be fixed! It drives me mad. And I miss being able to get anything at any time of day. You can’t do that there.”

  I suppose it’s time for Gwyneth to move back to America. But does America really need Gwyneth Paltrow?

  Britain (and much of Western Europe). Can a country get so caught up in lunatic political correctness that it ceases to respect human values and dignity? Can an entire land drink the Kool-Aid of enforced Islamofascism, to the point where every man, woman and child within its borders earns the cursed title “Celebutard”?

  How about a continent?

  Britain, our friendly neighbor across the pond, defied all reason and self-interest to advance the goal of sucking up to people who would kill Britons as soon as say “hello.”

  They detained a Dutch parliamentarian, Geert Wilders, at Heathrow Airport and quickly shipped him back to the Netherlands. Wilders, claimed the Brits, constituted “a threat to public policy.”

  What had he done? Condoned child sacrifice? Drunk American beer? Nope. Wilders is set to be prosecuted in his native Holland for “inciting hatred and discrimination” and “insulting Muslim worshippers,” in his 2008 short film, Fitna, as well as in public statements.

  What’s the fuss? Well, in the past, Wilders has called for a ban on the Koran, which he compared to Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf. His film Fitna contains footage from recent atrocities committed by Muslims, plus it presents the passages from the Koran that appear to have called for the bloody killings. The blasphemous film has been screened in Rome (go, Italians!) but is having trouble seeing daylight in Britain or Holland.

  According to the New Republic, the prosecution of Wilders resulted from extreme pressure put on Europe by the Organization of the Islamic Conference, which includes 56 Muslim states plus the Palestinian Authority. The OIC’s goal is plain: to make the world safe for sharia. And whether out of fear of its Muslim immigrant horde, or out of a deep-seated dedication to suicide, Britain is duly falling in line. This is a land whose union of university professors has tried long and hard to isolate Israeli academics and ban them from participating in research, invoking comparisons to Nazi Germany.

  But the right to free speech pales against what the OIC calls forbidden “Islamophobia” that is practiced in modern European countries. Islamophobic activity, incidentally, can include opposition to illegal immigration and any and all efforts to combat terrorism.

  So when in Europe, be careful what you say and what you think. The speech police are out to get you. The thought police are coming next. Wait a minute—they’re already here.

  INDEX

  Abedi, Agha Hasan

  Abraham, Lynne

  Abt, Vicki

  Abu-Jamal, Mumia

  Abu Marzook, Mousa Mohammed

  Academy Awards

  Gore and

  Moore and

  Spielberg and

  Streisand and

  Access Hollywood (TV show)

  Addison-Wesley

  Afghanistan

  African National Congress (ANC)

  Agassi, Andre

  Aguilera, Christina

  Ahmadinejad, Mahmoud

  Aiken, Clay

  Aldridge, Casey

  Alexander, Jason

  Al Hayat (newspaper)

  Alinsky, Saul

  Allen, Woody

  All in the Family (TV show)

  Alterman, Eric

  Altman, Robert

  Amanpour, Christiane

  American Jewish Congress (AJC)

  American Music Awards

  “American Skin (41 Shots)”(song)

  Angier, Natalie

  An Inconvenient Truth (documentary)

  Aniston, Jennifer

  Anti-Semitism

  Carter and

  Jackson and

  Sharpton and

  Soros and

  Apocalypse Now (movie)

  Arafat, Yasser

  Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

  Armstrong, Lance

  Ashcombe House

  Ashcroft, John

  Assad, Bashar

  Augusta National Golf Club

  Auto indust
ry, and Moore

  Baca, Lee

  Bacanovic, Peter

  Baldwin, Alexander Rae, III, “Alec,”

  Baldwin, Alexander Rae, Jr.

  Baldwin, Carol

  Baldwin, Ireland

  Balsam, Talia

  Bana, Eric

  Banda, David

  Banda, Yohane

  Barkin, Ellen

  Basic Instinct (movie)

  Basinger, Kim

  Batman and Robin (movie)

  BCCI

  Beastie Boys

  Beatty, Warren

  Beijing Olympics (2008)

  Bell, Sean

  Berman, Paul

  Bertrand, Marcheline

  Bimbo Summit. See Hilton, Paris; Lohan, Lindsay; Spears, Britney

  Bin Laden, Osama

  Black Panther Party

  Blair, Jayson

  Blair, Katie

  Blair, Tony

  Bleiler, Andy

  Bloch, Phillip

  Bloomberg, Michael

  Born in the U.S.A. (album)

  Born to Run (album)

  Bosnia, and Hillary Clinton

  Boston University

  Bowling for Columbine (documentary)