Meryl Streep

After praising Meryl Streep for her recent performance as Margaret Thatcher, MSNBC's Martin Bashir Tuesday bashed Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich claiming the Oscar-winning actress "would probably make a more authentic president' than either of them (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Margaret Thatcher's family is apparently appalled at what they've been hearing about a biopic being made of the former British Prime Minister.

"Mandrake hears that the screenplay of The Iron Lady depicts Baroness Thatcher as an elderly dementia-sufferer looking back on her career with sadness," reported Britain's Telegraph Saturday.

"She is shown talking to herself and unaware that her husband, Sir Denis Thatcher, has died."

Accordingly, her family members aren't pleased (h/t NBer upcountrywater):

“Hollywood actress Meryl Streep has admitted that the only person she has been star-struck by is U.S. President Barack Obama,” an India Times item posted on Sunday reported, quoting the actress: “I went to the White House and was star-struck by our President and First Lady. Although I was also impressed by Bruce Springsteen who was there as well.”

The unbylined item, which James Taranto highlighted in his “Best of the Web Today” for the Wall Street Journal’s opinion page, related how “Streep also believes that Barack is more than capable of making the right political choices for the U.S.” She gushed:

I think it is thrilling to have someone who is thoughtful and can articulate with a certain amount of passion and dispassion, the necessary choices that we have in the world.

Actress Meryl Streep, who plays an authoritarian nun battling a "passionate liberal priest" (according to Newsweek) in the new film "Doubt," told the Boston Herald on Sunday that the film is actually a metaphor for those who think the war on terror can be won with force. She argued, "It's about someone who thinks you can control evildoers with force and a firm hand and an unrelenting, 'We will not negotiate (with terrorists).'"

The liberal actress also added, "Or there's another approach, one with all these layers of humanity who think you have to have innocence so it doesn't go bad and get corrupted." Philip Seymour Hoffman, who co-stars in the film as a priest suspected of sex abuse, appeared on Monday's "Good Morning America" as part of a three day promotion that the ABC network is providing for the film. In the interview with news anchor Chris Cuomo, Hoffman somewhat cryptically said of the film, "...Certainty is usually connected to something positive. And doubt is usually connected to something negative. And what if you switch that and what would happen? And the film kind of is looking at those issues." (Reviews of the film suggest it comes down on the side of doubting.)

You would think this the perfect formula for a blockbuster movie: megastars Tom Cruise, Robert Redford, and Meryl Streep teaming up to flood theaters with an antiwar film just in time for the holidays.

Well, think again, for it appears that this much-anticipated film, featuring the much-anticipated return of Tom Cruise to the big screen, is a bigger bomb than anything the enemy has been able to lob at us in Iraq since the surge began.

As deliciously reported by Reuters Friday evening (h/t NBer botg, emphasis added):

The 40th anniversary issue of Rolling Stone interviewed several top actors on their political views. Meryl Streep and George Clooney each disparaged conservatives in different ways. Streep compared the Bush administration to the Nazis, and Clooney compared conservatives to the Salem witch burners. In line with Streep's current role in the flop Lions for Lambs, Rolling Stone film critic Peter Travers asked about playing the part of "the hated, compromised media," and she replied:

The dilemma of the journalist is everybody’s dilemma. The Constitution and the Bill of Rights protected the Fourth Estate so vehemently because we rely on these voices. And if we don’t have them, then God bless Sean Penn for speaking up. God bless the people who put themselves on the line to be fodder for Fox News and Rush Limbaugh’s next raise. We all have to be citizens first, and then whatever our job is.

The Nazi comparison came when Travers asked: How to do things change for the better?

Over a span of three days, "Good Morning America" has devoted almost 19 minutes of air time to promoting "Lions For Lambs," the left-wing, anti-war drama starring and directed by Robert Redford. The promotional push continued on Thursday's show as one of the film's other stars, Meryl Streep, attacked Bill O'Reilly for what she apparently saw as questioning the patriotism of liberals. After co-host Diane Sawyer played a clip of O'Reilly wondering if Democrats really want to win in Iraq, the actress sarcastically stated, "It was my favorite thing that I ever saw Bill O'Reilly do. And so I lifted it out of his show and put it in the movie."

Streep derided O'Reilly's comments as the "wife beating question" and, in an annoyed tone, asked, "Are you still beating your wife? There's no way to answer it." Sawyer's interview came after a segment on Wednesday with the actress, director Redford and fellow star Tom Cruise. That followed yet another piece on Tuesday solely with Redford. On Thursday, Sawyer continued to laud what she saw as a brave film. The co-host gushed that "Lions For Lambs" wonders how "you strengthen the muscles of your convictions?" She fawned over the film, which involves a journalist lobbying other reporters to oppose the government's plans for war, by describing Streep's character as "a middle-aged reporter, facing the question of her job or her convictions. What does it take to be brave?"

As part of the publicity push for their left-wing movie Lions for Lambs, Robert Redford, Meryl Streep, and Tom Cruise sat down with Time’s Richard Corliss for an article titled "The Lions Roar." But these lions have a very typical Hollywood Left message. In America, it’s very tough to speak out against war. "Standing up is very, very difficult," said Streep. "We vilify the people that do speak up. You're told you're not supporting the troops." Redford added: "If you're against us, you're not patriotic." They also say the American people don’t care so much about war as they do about celebrity dirt, and according to Streep, we face the tragedy of the unheeded peace-loving left: "we went forward, in the face of all sorts of warnings that are now proven to be the truth. Americans have been anesthetized by good fortune."