Think only politicians have political advisors? Not anymore. According to LAobserved.com, the latest edition of “W” revealed that increasingly, along with personal trainers and person assistants, Hollywood heavy hitters hire political advisors. The article’s author Gabriel Snyder states, “Hired by moguls and movie stars, they act as the conduits between show business and Washington power.”
There are several names listed in the online article, including; Rob Reiner, Steven Spielberg, Barbra Streisand, TV mogul Haim Saban and Laurie David, producer of “An Inconvenient Truth” and wife of “Curb Your Enthusiasm" and "Seinfeld" producer Larry David.
Rob Reiner explained the purpose of these advisors and the celebrity grab for influence and power:
“You have a lot of people who are very wealthy and very concerned about different aspects of society, and they want to use their money and influence in the best possible way,” Reiner says. “If they have a consultant who really does know the ins and outs of the political world, they can steer that influence to make the greatest impact.”
Contrary to what her statements and online posts would indicate, Barbra Streisand has “long been advised” by a professional as have others:
Barbra Streisand has long been advised by Marge Tabankin, who came to L.A. after having once worked in the Carter administration. For years, Steven Spielberg has called upon Andy Spahn, who once worked for the Democratic congressional and senatorial campaign committees, while Rob Reiner works with Chad Griffin, a former press aide in the Clinton White House who first met the director while showing him around the West Wing during a research trip for American President.
Snyder laid out the networking of groups and committees designed to influence and allow the old hands to have a “hand in grooming the newcomers.” That helps to explain why there are so few conservatives; the newcomers in Hollywood are cornered by these politically connected ideologues and are “educated” on issues and the appropriate politics. Snyder stated:
The current deans of the Hollywood political consultants are Tabankin and Spahn. Back in the 1980s, when Tabankin was the head of the Holly-wood Women’s Political Committee and Spahn led the Environmental Media Association, their offices were across the hall from each other. Over the years they have been joined by others, including Donna Bojarsky, who went to work for Richard Dreyfuss in 1989 and has helped the actor make his voice heard in Middle East affairs. The vets have also had a hand in grooming the newcomers. Lara Bergthold was hired by Tabankin after college and eventually took over the HWPC until it folded in 1994.
Finally, Snyder got to the Hollywood connection that we all know about but perhaps haven’t realized how calculated it is:
Some of the recent émigrés from D.C., including Liana Schwarz, have mixed the two worlds in previously unimaginable ways. Schwarz splits her time as a consultant for Laurie David, wife of Curb Your Enthusiasm’s Larry David, and at the Natural Resources Defense Council. She has spent much of the past two years working on global warming issues, including helping to promote Gore’s documentary, An Inconvenient Truth. When producers for the film, including Laurie David, pitched Gore on turning his eco-talk into a movie, they turned to Schwarz for advice on how to make the former vice president comfortable being a movie star.
I thought “Big Business” was evil because of its connections to the Three P’s: power, policy and politicians. Who would have ever guessed that in spite of, or perhaps, because of having these advisors, moguls and celebrities would say such stupid things?
(h/t LA Times)
Editor at Large
Comments Policy
Evening Lynn,This is verrrry
April 18, 2007 - 22:49 ET by bigtimerEvening Lynn,
This is verrrry interesting, but not surprising in the least for me...glad for the info and connections though....uhhhh...what's happened to Hillary's? Did they go the way of Obama too...lol!
Yep, this has been going on for years and years in good old La-La Land.
Let's please not forget Rahm Emanuels brother and his connectons with money and power and politics, and people had better watch out for Rahm, his sleazy crap behind the scene in the dem party from with-holding ifno. along with abc news about Foley until before the elections and other things, he is on his way to being the next Speaker if he has his way...please remember he is from the Clintoon administration and his connections, power, sleaze and money are a machine to reckoned with, no matter the illegality or questionabl;e practices these people get away with they are and arm of the media, bought and paid for gladly, after-all they are all for the same agenda of letist/socialistic nanny state power here in the USA...
Here is some great info about Ari Emanuel....Larry David ring a bell?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ari_Emanuel
I know this is some irony,
April 19, 2007 - 00:58 ET by radiofitz34I know this is some irony, but a song popped into my head as I started to read this blog. The song is "Fanfare For The Common Man" by Aaron Copeland. Of course the version in my head is the Emerson,Lake and Palmer version.
The reason I mentioned that was I'm used to hearing the same drivel from the dems about how they are always "fighting" for us. Yes it's nice to have a personal coach for those times when Babs doesn't want to sound like an idiot.
I guess trying some reality is not in their nature.
Hi BT,Compare this to the co
April 19, 2007 - 02:25 ET by Lynn DavidsonHi BT,
Compare this to the constant bellowing about the access and influence of the religious right, especially by the evangelicals to the lack of interest in unusual coziness between the Democrats and Hollywood.
I didn't see the original article online at style.com, which hosts "W" articles. Maybe there is more in the actual magazine, but it did seem a little light on some of the Hollywood-Washington connections.
Rob Reiner
April 19, 2007 - 01:17 ET by jmad627I see Rob "Meathead" Reiner's name on that list. Meathead has never been more apptly, or accurately attributed to an actor, such as Meathead Reiner. It's the perfect nickname for him. Nothing more than dead meat, from the neck up.
Just because they take themse
April 19, 2007 - 01:40 ET by KC MulvilleJust because they take themselves too seriously doesn’t mean I have to. The logic they follow is as coherent as most Hollywood movies, which is to say, not coherent at all.
Consider the premise. We have wealth, and we want to use it for the greatest impact. That attitude makes politics merely an investment. There’s no concern here with the virtue of the cause, or the quality of the legislation. It isn’t politics, or doing your civic duty. These stars only care about politics for the publicity. Investment only cares about the return.
Treating politics like investment causes problems, and I can think of three quickly:
I suppose these celebrities want Washington to be like Hollywood, where adultery is a career move. In my opinion, Washington is bad enough already.
The smarter investment is w
April 19, 2007 - 06:11 ET by motherbeltThe smarter investment is with Republicans, but celebrities can't bring
themselves to do that, especially when their consultants are all
Democrats--KC Mulville
Right, KC, and they will do that to their own detriment, if necessary. For the same reason, Hollywood continues to crank out sex-and-violence-drenched R-rated movies, even though the statistics show that family movies make more money.
Liberals and advisors?
April 19, 2007 - 02:06 ET by gfrrmanSo liberals hire advisors to tell them what they should say? You mean kinda like a script? And all of these mentioned happen to be liberals? I'm shocked, I tell ya!!!
"Eventually, Socialists run out of other peoples' money...." MARGARET THATCHER
So liberals hire advisors to
April 19, 2007 - 02:30 ET by Lynn DavidsonSo liberals hire advisors to tell them what they should say? You mean kinda like a script? And all of these mentioned happen to be liberals?
That's funny...and true. I can see it now, Cameron Diazd is at the podium of some awards show lecturing about whatever her pet cause of the day is; she falters and loses her train of thought, so she turns to her assistant and shouts, "Line!"
Lynn
April 19, 2007 - 02:45 ET by gfrrmanLynn, my point exactly. These uneducated idiots go through life "being"(acting) someone else. Wind them up and they'll say their lines. When it comes to critical thinking, which they lack, out comes the BS...ie: Rosie, Laurie/Larry David, Cheryl Crow, Alec Baldwin, B Streisand, Leonardo,etc... They NEED these advisors to sound intelligent..."Line"!!
"Eventually, Socialists run out of other peoples' money...." MARGARET THATCHER
Garbage In. Garbage Out.&qu
April 19, 2007 - 02:58 ET by Jack BauerGarbage In. Garbage Out.
GF, You are spot on. That w
April 19, 2007 - 04:07 ET by USA4freedomGF,
You are spot on. That was my very first thought. Because they are tired of looking stupid by parroting back the crazy left talking points and then finding out just how dumb they are, when people laugh at them. This way they don’t have to think, just recite the lines that someone else told them what the left believes.
These are the boys of Pointe du Hoc.
Ronald Reagn- 40th Anniversary of D-Day
Why do actors and actresses
April 19, 2007 - 09:15 ET by ahusserWhy do actors and actresses believe they have to take a political stance in the first place. I used to enjoy some of these actors and actresses performances until they started opening their left wing mouths on left wing causes. Now I can't watch anything they do. Why would you want to lose any part of your audience?
I think a lot of them do it o
April 19, 2007 - 11:09 ET by GalvanicI think a lot of them do it out of guilt. They command obscene amounts of money for films and TV series, and they get hit on by Leftist organizations for a piece of the pie. Some quietly pay their indulgences to the Left, and others become mouthpieces for the Leftists.
While the outspokenness of celebrities seems to have increased over the years, Hollywood has been furtile ground for Communists and socialists since the 1920s. Some, like Lillian Hellman, were apologists for Stalin. The Hollywood Ten really were in bed with the Communists at one time.
Since the Sixities, they gotten bolder with there outspokennness.
It is funny how McCarthyism i
April 19, 2007 - 12:51 ET by ahusserIt is funny how McCarthyism is still one of the battle cries for the left. After the wall fell we found out that McCarthy was right and Hollywood, the State Department etc. had been infiltrated by the Commies. The funny part of the whole thing is if it had been in the USSR instead of being blacklisted they would have been executed or shipped off to the Gulag.
Hot Betty?
April 19, 2007 - 05:56 ET by goldenthroat"Hot Betty" is on the cover of "W"? Hmmm - the same "hot Betty" who was quoted as saying that America will never be free until Bush is gone? Well, glory be, it is!
And Meathead says "you have a lot of people who are very wealthy and very concerned about different aspects of society and want to use their money and influence in the best possible way...:" Yeah, right, fat boy - just so long as they're wealthy liberals!
Never dance on a empty stomach unless it's a liberal.
On "betty"
April 19, 2007 - 09:43 ET by UnsaneYes, that is the same "hot Betty", that would not be permitted to be in that pose (unless in a burqa or similar covering) if the terrorists and Islamofascists have their way, who whined that the United States will not be free until the man who is working to defend our freedoms is gone.
What an outstanding intellectual she is!
"HAV3 TH3 BRIDG3S OF INSANITY B33N CROSS3D AND FOR3V3R R3TRACT3D???." - Meshuggah, "3ntrapm3nt", from Catch Thirty Thr33 (2005)
This is kind of OT, but I'm
April 19, 2007 - 06:22 ET by motherbeltThis is kind of OT, but I'm looking at the "W" cover, "Hot Betty" and thinking, why do they have to make such a big point of the fact that the actress really looks better than the part she plays? We do know about makeup, you know, and what it can do.
She's still Ugly though!
April 19, 2007 - 20:00 ET by terrigYou know Motherbelt, I had some pictures done right before I turned 30 and when I picked them up I thought who is that???? Make up, good lighting, incredible clothes and great hair stylist (just ask the Breck girl) can make anyone look beautiful. Funny thing, my friend and his wife won a lunch with Cindy Crawford about 10 years ago and she didn't look like the Cindy Crawford we see in ads and she laughed and told them that she doesn't look like Cindy Crawford without her "people".
“You have a lot of people
April 19, 2007 - 07:15 ET by kahoonai know you...and your name is ELITIST.
isn't this what the left rails against?
Bingo, Kahoona! That is exact
April 19, 2007 - 18:11 ET by Lynn DavidsonBingo, Kahoona! That is exactly what the left rails against and warns is a major evil of the Republican Party. How often do we hear about "Republican fatcats?"
Today, on MSNBC's "Tucker," a Democratic politico was engaged in a debate about late-term abortions and immediately retreated to the Democmratic fall-back position about everything when he attacked today's decision by saying whether people should or should not have an abortion should not be decided by "rich white men." What does that make Rob Reiner, Steven Spielberg, Larry David and the other "rich white men" in Hollywood that use "advisers" as their conduit to the kind of direct access to powerful politicians in Washington of which the average American can only dream. I thought that kind of inequality was immoral.
I'll predict which Hollywoo
April 19, 2007 - 07:24 ET by sarcasmoI'll predict which Hollywood star pays nobody-else for opinions. Clint Eastwood.
JMR
Holly weird
April 19, 2007 - 07:53 ET by charlietexasWho is their political advisior....Bill Mahar or Rosie??? I say....keep talking Hollywood................It just shows how stupid you all are...................
Meatballs and Meatheads...
April 19, 2007 - 08:43 ET by goldenthroat"Beauty is temporary - stupid is forever." - Judge Judy
Never dance on an empty stomach unless it's a liberal.
Why is it that if someone can
April 19, 2007 - 11:14 ET by Tom PaineWhy is it that if someone can carry a tune or recite dialogue written for them by someone else, they are automatically considered to be experts on a whole host of issues including foreign policy, gun control taxation and global warming. Other than them having more money to pay for banging their empty drums, why is their opinion considered to be more important than mine. Many of these geniuses are high school drop outs who have never held a steady job in their lives. If we stop paying attention to them maybe they will fade away.
Just a theory...
April 19, 2007 - 21:53 ET by nkviking75I'd be willing to bet political types pursue show-biz types more often than the other way around. Activists know the PR value of a famous face spouting their propaganda, and most of the people they recruit don't have the critical thinking skills to arrive at any political position on their own.
When you put the clowns in charge, don't be surprised when a circus breaks out.