From: phurrballs@yahoo.com   
      
   The Clooney left   
      
   If only George Clooney would run for president. John Patterson sizes up the   
   star's political prospects   
      
   Saturday February 25, 2006   
   The Guardian   
      
      
   Ever since Arnold Schwarzenegger became Der Kali-Führer in 2003, I've been   
   wondering if the Democrats could ever find an equivalent figure to run for   
   office. And suddenly it seemed so obvious: If Mr Freeze can run on his   
   celebrity-recognition quotient alone, with a campaign platform containing no   
   discernible political ideas whatsoever, then surely Batman himself can run   
   for the White House.   
      
   That's right: George Clooney for president. Far-fetched? Well, let's run   
   some comparisons. It's been a while since we had our last actor president,   
   and, whatever liberals may think of Reagan, celebrity earns you extra points   
   with the public and knowing how to deliver one's lines is an asset in   
   politics, so Clooney already has one up on the verbal dyslexic currently   
   calling the shots in Washington.   
      
   Clooney has one divorce in his background, but no scandal beyond clipping   
   David O Russell round the ear on the set of Three Kings, which is the kind   
   of thing that plays well in the Red states - much like shooting lawyers in   
   the face. His youthful indiscretions pale against the current incumbent's   
   binge-drinking, DUI convictions, perpetual bailings-out, not to mention   
   draft-dodging. Clooney might merely be expected to apologise for Revenge Of   
   The Killer Tomatoes and for his never-released debut movie, co-starring the   
   louchely Kennedyesque Charlie Sheen.   
   He'd be the first single president, well, since Michael Douglas in The   
   American President, which would make him a bit like the skirt-hound Kennedy,   
   though Clooney appears not to be the almost neurotic priapist JFK was. One   
   of Kennedy's more famous conquests was Angie Dickinson ("the most   
   unforgettable 60 seconds of my life," was her post-coital verdict), better   
   known as the original Mrs Danny Ocean, so there's a whiff of that   
   retro-Camelot glamour for you right there. Like Reagan, Kennedy and Clinton,   
   he'd probably be a grating presence to a good half of the American   
   electorate, but it didn't kill them and it wouldn't kill him.   
      
   Politically, a Clooney presidency would probably strive to return sanity to   
   the national debate. The American right has long smeared Clooney as just   
   another loopy Hollywood liberal, but there's no evidence that he's anything   
   but an old-fashioned American centrist. His political movies, particularly   
   this Friday's Syriana and Good Night, And Good Luck, are hardly radical   
   agitprop. They (and Three Kings and Clooney's TV remake of Fail Safe) may   
   have the slightly worthy air of civics lessons, but they certainly suggest   
   the guy is engaged with his times. A good-looking, independently minded,   
   lapsed-Catholic, clean-and-sober actor versus a bought-and-paid-for,   
   dry-drunk fundamentalist and four-decade failure of a human glove-puppet?   
      
   Voters, the choice is clear!   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)