To the extent that it is being reported, actor Jon Voight's remarks to last night's Republican House-Senate fundraising dinner are being selectively chosen to fit the media's talking points about conservatives and the GOP.

Robert Dougherty of Associated Content News, for example, has latched onto some red meat lines to portray the actor as a thorn in the side of some Republicans who don't want to rock the proverbial boat:

Though the Republicans tried in vein [sic] to heal the recent divides in the party, Jon Voight had no such words of reconciliation in regards to the President. As host of the dinner, Voight spoke against the "Obama oppression" and called the President a "false prophet" among other things.

But that doesn't do justice to Voight's 10-minute speech -- which I've embedded above at right -- wherein the veteran actor noted how Democrats and the media were content to wear down public opinion of George W. Bush with a never-ending flood of negativity while building up Barack Obama as a near-messianic savior who dare not be questioned:

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Well, we certainly know how they [liberal Democrats] won. Obama's path to the presidency has been thoroughly documented.  We may want to look at some of those strategies as we build toward the 2010 [midterm] elections.

Certainly at the outset the Democrats fulfilled their mission to paint President Bush as a warmonger. And once they were able to reach all the youth and colleges on the Internet with this lie -- painting him as the evil one, never giving him credit for keeping our country safe -- once they established that, then it would be easy to bring in The One, as Oprah Winfrey crowned him.

[...]

Nevermind that it was as clear as the nose on your face who Obama was attached to. Nothing seemed to matter. It was amazing to me how the media and the young generation were taken in by Obama's false haloistic [sic] presence and all his attachments to all the wrong people -- Ayers, Wright, Pfleger, Alinsky -- didn't matter one iota.

[...]

Obama as a candidate portrayed himself as a moderate but turned out to be wildly radical. The way he played his deception was interesting but his campaign was meticululously thought-through, well-organized in their techniques of outreach to gather support and funds through the Internet were innovative, and their Hollywood savvy and use of  media was masterful.

All their strategies should be carefully looked at to see if we might mimic them in a positive, legal way.

Voight also expressed concern for how the Obama administration may be selling out the security of the U.S.'s greatest and only democratic ally in the Middle East:

My most pressing concern at this hour is the safety of Israel.

[audience applause]

I think Obama has no idea that Israel was built on the blood and sweat of the Jewish people. Every blade of grass, every tree, has been a successful effort because of the Jewish people understanding they would have a safe homeland forever.

He could not possibly understand this or he would know that the Jewish people have tried time and time again to give the Palestinians land and bring a peaceful solution. But every attempt, every attempt, was returned with violence. The Palestinians used Gaza to attack Israel.

As far as I'm concerned, their only agenda is to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth and he reprimands the Israeli people, Obama, like he's a professor and they're the schoolchildren.

—Ken Shepherd is Managing Editor of NewsBusters