"Nonpartisan" Angelina Jolie: Republicans Can Care About Children Too!

During her much hyped June 20 interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, actress Angelina Jolie expressed a view that may shock many of her liberal Hollywood friends:

Just because someone’s Republican doesn’t mean that they don’t also, you know, have the capacity to understand or care about children...

This backhanded compliment was in response to Cooper’s adoring praise of activist Jolie’s "non-partisan" efforts to "affect change" in the world. If by non-partisan Cooper meant indirectly attacking the Bush administration and the Iraq war, then Jolie certainly is "non-partisan."

You can certainly see that the amount of money being spent at war, and the amount of money we are not spending in countries and dealing with situations that could end up in conflict if left unassisted, and then cause war. So, so our priorities are quite strange. So we’re not–we’re missing a lot of opportunities to do a lot of the good that America is used to doing, has a history of doing. And we’re not able to be as generous.

More from the two hour Cooper-Jolie lovefest is behind the cut:

MRC intern Chadd Clark transcribed this portion of the interview, where Cooper fawned over "non-partisan" Jolie:

Anderson Cooper: "What’s interesting, actually, you and, and Bono, I noticed, are, are activists, and yet in a very, really, sort of, non-partisan way, and, and I’ve talked to him about that a little bit. You know, there are some celebrities who, who throw, throw stones or, or Molotov cocktails to try to get things done. You seem to be trying to work, you know, both side, Republican, Democrat, doesn’t seem to matter. You, you seem to be trying to affect change and do it in a smart way as opposed to just yelling."

Angelina Jolie: "Yeah, well hopefully, I’m not yelling yet."

Cooper: "Well, give it some time."

Jolie: "But yeah. No, absolutely. I’m, I mean, I think that’s the only way–"

Cooper: "If that bill doesn’t get funded, maybe–"

Jolie: "But, absolutely, I mean I think it’s the only way to run. And, you know, there are–just because someone’s Republican doesn’t mean that they don’t also, you know, have the capacity to understand or care about children, you know, for this bill or that bill. You know, you have to, to speak to every person individually. You can’t just have an assumption that, like, well that person’s an extreme–"

Cooper: "It’s got to be a hard thing though for someone who, I’m sure, you know, you have your own opinions about things, it’s got to be hard to, sort of, be like Switzerland and, sort of, try to be neutral. You know?"

Cooper then asked Jolie about her views on the Iraq war:

Cooper: "Number of refugees has dropped 12 percent in the last year, to something like 8.4 million. But the number of internally displaced people, inside their own country, who’ve had to move from their homes has actually jumped like 22 percent, and a lot of that is because of Iraq, with the population in Iraq. I know you’ve been to, to Jordan, to the region. Do you, in your position, do you take a position on the war in Iraq?"

Jolie: "It’s really difficult when there’s, I think most people feel this, when you have men and women that are over there, and they’re fighting, and, and so, and we’re in, we’re at war. So you know, it’s, it’s done. It’s–we’re there. You start to see–the more times I’ve been to Washington, the more times you talk to somebody about, we’ve got to get money for AIDS orphans, or we have to get money for–whether it be any kind of response to any, any tragedy. And the, often the answer is, well, we’re, we’re at war right now. A lot of money’s going to war right now. We don’t have–so, so you start to look at it in a different way. And so, whether you’re for or against the war, you can certainly see that the amount of money being spent at war, and the amount of money we are not spending in countries and dealing with situations that could end up in conflict if left unassisted, and then cause war. So, so our priorities are quite strange. So we’re not–we’re missing a lot of opportunities to do a lot of the good that America is used to doing, has a history of doing. And we’re not able to be as generous. We’re not able to be on the forefront of all of these wonderful things as much. And so, whether or not you’re for or against the war, you have to start to notice that that–that there’s something wrong with that."