2006-10-24

Are there two Tim Robbins?

Today I watched about 2 minutes of The View, where Mrs. Susan Sarandon was talking about his upcoming movie taking place during apartheid-era South Africa.

At one point, Rosie O'Donnell had to chime in that one of the things about the movie (Catch a Fire) she noted was that it featured a government acting against people it called "terrorists" by suspending civil liberties and arresting people without warrants or sufficient evidence and blathering about how it was the same thing as happening in the U.S. under evil Bush etc. etc. etc. Half-assed conservative panelist Elisabeth Hasselbeck tried to respond in a "you're wrong but lets not argue" diffusive situation that never actually works, and then O'Donnel kept on ranting.

And then the damnedest thing happened. Tim Robbins actually defended Bush against her. Well, not entirely. But he did start to stress that Rosie was comparing apples and oranges. To wit, that the anti-apartheid group was fighting for civil rights: the right to vote, the right to free association, etc. etc. Also, they specifically refused to ever target civilians, etc. etc. Now most of what Robbins is saying about the ANC is pretty much in error, but it was quite the shock to see Robbins de facto defending Bush's Patriot Act.

Newsbusters has more on the early part of the incident

You can watch the video of the incident on Hot Air's blog.