Is George Clooney Part of a Secret Group Shaping a Pro-Liberal Message at the Oscars?

Is George Clooney part of a secret cabal of left-leaning Hollywood power mongers secretly controlling the message that gets sent out at the Oscars? It sounds like a conspiracy theory, but Clooney himself suggests otherwise.

Last September at the Toronto International Film Festival, I sat down for a chat with the 56-year-old star. Granted, there were about a dozen other people at the table, but Clooney has a way of working a room so you feel like you’re the only one in it.

He was talking about his new movie Suburbicon, but out of nowhere he launched into a story about the 2004 Oscars, two years before he became a two-time nominee for Good Night, and Good Luck, and a Supporting Actor winner for Syriana.

“I’d gotten a call from Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon, who I didn’t really know,” he begins. “I’d met them a couple of times. And it was the night before the Oscars. I’d never been to the Oscars. And I get a call to come to the Bel Age Hotel.” The swanky Hollywood locale has since been renamed the London West.

“So I go to the Bel Age Hotel for this clandestine meeting. I walk in and it’s Tim, Susan, Gore Vidal, Eddie Vedder, Don Cheadle, Michael Moore and Woody Harrelson … and they’re all talking about what they’re going to do the next night at the Oscars.” Anti-war, anti-Bush, etc.

“And I was like, ‘If you win, say whatever the f–k you want, but if you’re presenting, you know, it seems a little gratuitous.’” Anyway, he tells them it’s moot because he’s not going. The evening wraps up, and he goes home.

“A year later, Bill O’Reilly does a half-hour show about why my career is over.” Clooney and O’Reilly, famously far apart on

Meryl Streep will be doing her devout reading of “The Hollywood Creed-—what all Hollywood really believes. (hat tip Michael Kelly)

Hollywood believes President Bill Clinton. And has always believed him. Hollywood believed it when Clinton said he had never been drafted in the Vietnam War and believed him later when Clinton said he had merely “forgotten to mention” that he had been drafted in the Vietnam War.

Hollywood believed him when Clinton he said he hadn’t had sex with Gennifer Flowers and believed him later, when Clinton reportedly said he did bed her down.

Hollywood believes the president did not rent out the Lincoln Bedroom to celebrities, did not sell access to himself and the vice president to hundreds of well-heeled special pleaders and did not supervise the largest, most systematic money-laundering operation in campaign finance history, collecting more than $ 3 million in illegal and improper donations.

Hollywood believes that Charlie Trie and James Riady were motivated by nothing but patriotism for their adopted country.

Hollywood believed President Clinton when he conceded that his administration mistakenly obtained the FBI files of more than 300 people, including many top Republicans and believes it was the result of a “completely honest bureaucratic snafu” involving security clearances.

Hollywood believed Clinton’s chief of staff, Leon Panetta, when he told reporters that “obviously a mistake was made” and apologized to the people whose FBI files wound up at the White House. Hollywood believed Clinton when he said “I completely support” what my COS Panetta said about the affair.

Hollywood believed Vice President Gore when he said that he had made dunning calls to political contributors “on a few occasions” from his White House office, and believed him when he said that, actually, “a few” meant 46.

Hollywood devoutly believes in no controlling legal authority....but not for Nixon or Trump.

Hollywood believed Bruce Babbitt when he said that the $286,000 contributed to the DNC by Indian tribes opposed to granting a casino license to rival tribes had nothing to do with his denial of the license. Hollywood believed the secretary when he said that he had not been instructed in this matter by then-White House deputy chief of staff Harold Ickes.

Hollywood believed him when he said later that he had told lobbyist and friend Paul Eckstein that Ickes had told him to move on the casino decision, but that he had been lying to Eckstein.

Hollywood agreed with the secretary that it is an outrage that anyone would question his integrity.

Hollywood firmly believes in the “Clinton Standard” of adherence to the nation’s campaign finance and bribery laws, enunciated by the president on March 7, 1997: “I don’t believe you can find any evidence of the fact that I had changed government policy solely because of a contribution.”

All of Hollywood’s accomplished wordsmiths noted with approval the use of the word “evidence” and also the use of the word “solely.” Hollywood believes, as Clinton does, that it is proper to change government policy to address the concerns of people who have given the president money, as long as nobody can find evidence of this being the “sole” reason.

Hollywood believes president Clinton lived up to his promise to preside over the most ethical administration in American history that indicted former agriculture secretary Mike Espy did not accept $35,000 in illegal favors from Tyson Foods and other regulated businesses.

Hollywood believes that indicted former housing secretary Henry Cisneros did not lie to the FBI and tell others to lie to cover up $250,000 in blackmail payments to his former mistress.

Hollywood believes that convicted former associate attorney general Webster Hubbell was not involved in the obstruction of justice when the president’s minions arranged for Hubbell to receive $ 400,000 in sweetheart consulting deals at a time when he was reneging on his promise to cooperate with Kenneth Starr’s Whitewater investigation.

Hollywood believes, as Harvey Weinstein does, that Paula Jones is a cheap tramp who was asking for it, that Kathleen Willey is a cheap tramp who was asking for it, and that Monica Lewinsky is a cheap tramp who was asking for it.

Hollywood firmly believes Monica Lewinsky was “just fantasizing” in her 20 hours of taped conversation in which she reportedly detailed her sexual relationship with the president and begged Linda Tripp to join her in lying about the relationship and that any gifts, correspondence, telephone calls and the 37 post-employment White House visits that may have passed between Lewinsky and the president are evidence only of a platonic relationship.

Hollywood believes, as all producers and casting directors do, that such innocent intimate friendships are quite common between middle-aged married men and young single women, and also between presidents of the United States and White House interns.

Hollywood sees nothing suspicious in the report that the president’s intimate pal, Vernon Jordan, arranged a $40,000 per-year job for Lewinsky shortly after she signed but before she filed an affidavit saying she had not had sex with the president.

Nor did insightful Hollywood with its finger on the pulse of America read anything significant into the fact that the ambassador to the United Nations, Bill Richardson, visited Lewinsky at the Watergate to offer her a job.

Hollywood producers, directors, authors and screenwriters believe the instructions Lewinsky gave Linda Tripp informing her on how to properly perjure herself in the Willey matter simply wrote themselves.

Hollywood believes, as does Hillary, that The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, Newsweek, Time, U.S. News & World Report, ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, PBS and NPR are all part of a vast right-wing conspiracy to malign the saintly Clintons.

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