February 23, 2007 5:53 AM

Isn't it a bit early for this sort of cheap, manufactured drama?

Gentle jabs turn to punches for Clinton, Obama: Remarks by David Geffen spark the first direct attacks between the two camps

In her run for the White House, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton eventually was going to face the legacy of the more unsavory episodes of her husband’s two terms as president. But in a surprise Wednesday, the first person to draw wide attention to some of the old controversies was not a Republican candidate or the “vast, right-wing conspiracy” that the Clintons have assailed, but a leading liberal at the heart of Hollywood. Comments from entertainment mogul David Geffen, which were highly critical of the Clintons, reverberated through the presidential campaign and prompted the first direct attacks between the camps of Clinton ‚Äö√Ñ√Æ a New York senator ‚Äö√Ñ√Æ and Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois. Considered the two leading Democratic candidates, they until now had traded only gentle jabs in genteel language.

A year away from the first Democratic primary, and here we are, having to listen to faux controversies about contrived issues, imaginary hurt feelings, and spurious, meaningless accusations. I’m not certain that I possess a vocabulary sufficient to describe how little I care about David Geffen’s opinion of Hillary Clinton. Given that no one really cares about who or how many people are dying in Iraq anymore, I suppose the mainstream media has to do something to fill their allotted non-commercial programming time. Why not manufacture a controversy out of whole cloth? And who better to do it than a Hollywood mogul who recognizes a winning story line when he sees one? It’s just too bad that David Geffen had to be such a dick about it.

Geffen talked about why he had soured on the Clintons, his longtime allies, and was instead backing Obama. He called Sen. Clinton an “incredibly polarizing figure,” criticized her husband’s 2001 pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich and suggested that Bill Clinton’s personal habits would damage his wife’s campaign, hurting Democratic hopes of retaking the White House next year.

“Everybody in politics lies, but they do it with such ease, it’s troubling,” Geffen said of the Clintons in a New York Times interview published Wednesday.

The comments marked an escalation in the battle between Sen. Clinton and Obama for Hollywood money. Geffen, who had raised millions of dollars for the Clintons over the years, on Tuesday hosted a $1.3-million fundraiser for Obama.

So Barack Obama’s now Hollywood’s new “it” objet d’art? He’s fresh, he’s new, he’s untarnished by 15 years of hateful personal attacks by all manner of Right-wing trolls…and he hasn’t been portrayed in the media as a castrating bitch and closet lesbian.

It’s interesting that Geffen has chosen now to castigate Bill and Hillary Clinton as liars. It’s not as if anything has changed…except the Obama is the new kid in town and Hillary Clinton is old, tired, used up…and, apparently, yesterday’s news. You know how Hollywood hates sequels, right?

Twelve months before the first primary, and we’re already being subjected to cheap, manufactured controversies? Jeebus, people; call me when you have something to talk about that actually matters, ‘kay??

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This page contains a single entry by Jack Cluth published on February 23, 2007 5:53 AM.

Liars, damn liars, and rank amateurs was the previous entry in this blog.

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