Friday, April 11, 2003
It's Crow Eating Time In Hollywood
Martin Sheen, who thinks he's really president even if her only plays one on television promised Hollywood Reporter correspondent Paul Bond he’d buy him dinner if he was proved wrong about his rabid anti-war stand - and now that he has been, Bond hasn't heard a word from him.
It could be he realizes that the main dish he'll be served is a generous helping of crow.
As Bond relates on the April 11 FrontPagemagazine.com, he was quizzing Sheen and fellow Saddam appeasers such as Mike Farrell and a host of other activist-actors about how they'd react if U.S. forces were greeted by cheering Iraqis if we invaded their country.
At a news conference in December where Sheen, Farrell and a dozen others announced the formation of the group Artists United to Win Without War, Bond asked: "If we militarily go (to Iraq) and do a regime change, and you see Iraqis coming forward saying, 'Thank God we no longer have to live under (Saddam Hussein's) tyrannical rule, his torturous regime,' if you see Iraqis dancing in the streets a la Afghanis, would you publicly change your position? Would you consider that you might be wrong?"
Sheen's reply: "Oh, I'm always open to the possibility that I'm wrong."
Undaunted, Bond pressed on: "Would you publicly state that maybe your group was wrong after a successful war with minimal casualties? I've seen lots of these things before," Bond continued. "I don't recall any celebrity making a big splash about anything and then publicly saying, 'You know, maybe we might have been wrong.' And I'm wondering if there's a possibility you might be wrong and if you would admit it?" "
"Are you saying we're going to eat our words?" Sheen asked Bond.
"I'm saying, if you do, would you publicly state so?" Bond replied
"That's when Sheen promised me a dinner where we'd 'see who eats what.'
A few weeks later, Bond had a similar conversation with highly vocal antiwar activist and comedienne Janeane Garofalo.
"There's no way a war in Iraq will go well," Garofalo assured Bond.
"If you're wrong and we defeat them with minimal casualties, and the Iraqi people say 'God Bless America for removing Saddam Hussein,' will you admit you were wrong?" Bond asked
"I want to be wrong," Garofalo answered. "I would hold a press conference. I'll bring orchids to Laura Bush and Dick Cheney!"
Bond said he is yet to receive an invitation to a Garofalo press conference or to a dinner with Sheen. What he did get was an invitation Wednesday to a meeting of Not in Our Name (NION).
NION, he explained is one of the more radical of the antiwar groups, and embraced by such ultra-left wing celebrities as Susan Sarandon, Ed Asner, Oliver Stone and Danny Glover.
NION has helped organize "peace" rallies sometimes 200,000-strong, and boasts that theirs is a worldwide organization, Bond said, adding that he thought Wednesday's meeting would be particularly interesting, being that the peace movement suffered a major setback that day, such as those televised images of Iraqis waving American flags and kissing photos of President Bush.
He says he was wrong.
At 6:30 p.m., when the meeting was scheduled to begin, he reports that there were just eight people in attendance. By 7 p.m. it had grown to 34 people, but two of those were a TV news crew.
The U.S. military is causing "death and carnage to the people of Iraq," one attendee said. "The resistance in not over," said another.
During a private conversation with the group's media coordinator Bond was told that, even during the meatiest days of the antiwar movement the L.A. chapter of NION attracted only about 50 people to its meetings. "Then I asked my favorite question: ‘What will it take to make you admit you might be wrong?’ ” he recalled
"There's more than one answer to your question," the genial young man began, before Bond cut him off with specific hypotheticals.
"They could find nuclear bombs in 16 different locations in Iraq and NION will still say the war was wrong?"
Not getting a straight answer, Bond says he "upped the ante a bit. Then a bit more."
"How about if we find 16,000 different torture chambers and 14 million Iraqis go on the record saying, 'God Bless America, we don't have to be tortured any more.' Then would NION say, 'Maybe we were wrong?'"
"Sure," the NION representative conceded.
Bond said he's still vainly searching for that most elusive of all people - "a repentant antiwar activist."
And waiting for Sheen to turn up to eat crow, presumably right after Garofalo's press conference when she sends those orchids to Laura Bush and Dick Cheney.
It'll be a long wait, Paul.
Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
It's Crow Eating Time In Hollywood
Martin Sheen, who thinks he's really president even if her only plays one on television promised Hollywood Reporter correspondent Paul Bond he’d buy him dinner if he was proved wrong about his rabid anti-war stand - and now that he has been, Bond hasn't heard a word from him.
It could be he realizes that the main dish he'll be served is a generous helping of crow.
As Bond relates on the April 11 FrontPagemagazine.com, he was quizzing Sheen and fellow Saddam appeasers such as Mike Farrell and a host of other activist-actors about how they'd react if U.S. forces were greeted by cheering Iraqis if we invaded their country.
At a news conference in December where Sheen, Farrell and a dozen others announced the formation of the group Artists United to Win Without War, Bond asked: "If we militarily go (to Iraq) and do a regime change, and you see Iraqis coming forward saying, 'Thank God we no longer have to live under (Saddam Hussein's) tyrannical rule, his torturous regime,' if you see Iraqis dancing in the streets a la Afghanis, would you publicly change your position? Would you consider that you might be wrong?"
Sheen's reply: "Oh, I'm always open to the possibility that I'm wrong."
Undaunted, Bond pressed on: "Would you publicly state that maybe your group was wrong after a successful war with minimal casualties? I've seen lots of these things before," Bond continued. "I don't recall any celebrity making a big splash about anything and then publicly saying, 'You know, maybe we might have been wrong.' And I'm wondering if there's a possibility you might be wrong and if you would admit it?" "
"Are you saying we're going to eat our words?" Sheen asked Bond.
"I'm saying, if you do, would you publicly state so?" Bond replied
"That's when Sheen promised me a dinner where we'd 'see who eats what.'
A few weeks later, Bond had a similar conversation with highly vocal antiwar activist and comedienne Janeane Garofalo.
"There's no way a war in Iraq will go well," Garofalo assured Bond.
"If you're wrong and we defeat them with minimal casualties, and the Iraqi people say 'God Bless America for removing Saddam Hussein,' will you admit you were wrong?" Bond asked
"I want to be wrong," Garofalo answered. "I would hold a press conference. I'll bring orchids to Laura Bush and Dick Cheney!"
Bond said he is yet to receive an invitation to a Garofalo press conference or to a dinner with Sheen. What he did get was an invitation Wednesday to a meeting of Not in Our Name (NION).
NION, he explained is one of the more radical of the antiwar groups, and embraced by such ultra-left wing celebrities as Susan Sarandon, Ed Asner, Oliver Stone and Danny Glover.
NION has helped organize "peace" rallies sometimes 200,000-strong, and boasts that theirs is a worldwide organization, Bond said, adding that he thought Wednesday's meeting would be particularly interesting, being that the peace movement suffered a major setback that day, such as those televised images of Iraqis waving American flags and kissing photos of President Bush.
He says he was wrong.
At 6:30 p.m., when the meeting was scheduled to begin, he reports that there were just eight people in attendance. By 7 p.m. it had grown to 34 people, but two of those were a TV news crew.
The U.S. military is causing "death and carnage to the people of Iraq," one attendee said. "The resistance in not over," said another.
During a private conversation with the group's media coordinator Bond was told that, even during the meatiest days of the antiwar movement the L.A. chapter of NION attracted only about 50 people to its meetings. "Then I asked my favorite question: ‘What will it take to make you admit you might be wrong?’ ” he recalled
"There's more than one answer to your question," the genial young man began, before Bond cut him off with specific hypotheticals.
"They could find nuclear bombs in 16 different locations in Iraq and NION will still say the war was wrong?"
Not getting a straight answer, Bond says he "upped the ante a bit. Then a bit more."
"How about if we find 16,000 different torture chambers and 14 million Iraqis go on the record saying, 'God Bless America, we don't have to be tortured any more.' Then would NION say, 'Maybe we were wrong?'"
"Sure," the NION representative conceded.
Bond said he's still vainly searching for that most elusive of all people - "a repentant antiwar activist."
And waiting for Sheen to turn up to eat crow, presumably right after Garofalo's press conference when she sends those orchids to Laura Bush and Dick Cheney.
It'll be a long wait, Paul.
Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
