George Clooney cemented his auteur status with 2005’s Good Night, and Good Luck.
The drama recalled journalist Edward R. Murrow’s clash with Sen. Joseph McCarthy during what later became known as the Blacklist era. Clooney co-wrote and co-starred in a film that earned six Oscar nominations, including Best Director and Best Original Screenplay.
Clooney’s directorial career slumped following the movie’s release. Blame it on duds like Leatherheads (2008), The Monuments Men (2014), Suburbicon (2017) and The Tender Bar (2021).
Now, the actor/director is bringing Good Night, and Good Luck to Broadway. It’s a shrewd business move and, according to the star, a chance to praise the legacy media.
Here’s what Clooney said at a New York press conference tied to the play’s arrival.
It’s a subject matter that is very close to our hearts, which is what [the press] does. Telling the truth and holding truth to power. It’s a play we’re very excited to do.
Most Americans understand the legacy press no longer holds one party accountable for its actions. Reporters ignored President Joe Biden’s obvious cognitive decline, for example. Journalists also refused to cover the Hunter Biden laptop scandal until months after the 2020 presidential election wrapped.
Even then, the coverage proved muted and ineffective. Some truths must be hidden, apparently.
The same, apparently, applies to Clooney.
The actor appeared alongside President Biden last June for a 2024 fundraising rally. The event funneled $30 million into the Commander in Chief’s coffers.
The gala did more than that. It gave Clooney a close-up view of Biden’s cognitive decline. It wasn’t a “cheap fake” attack by his political adversaries.
It was real.
Yet Clooney said nothing for weeks following the fundraiser, keeping the critical truth to himself. Only when Biden’s poll numbers dipped following his disastrous June 27 debate did Clooney open up about the situation.
The actor took to the pages of the New York Times to gently push Biden off the ticket.
I love Joe Biden. As a senator. As a vice president and as president. I consider him a friend, and I believe in him. Believe in his character. Believe in his morals. In the last four years, he’s won many of the battles he’s faced …But the one battle he cannot win is the fight against time. None of us can. It’s devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fund-raiser was not the Joe ‘big F-ing deal’ Biden of 2010. He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate.
Had that early debate never happened, or Biden’s approval ratings remained competitive, Clooney would have kept that secret to himself.
The truth would remain out of reach for Americans who still trusted the legacy media.
Perhaps he’s not the best person to push the truth-telling element of his own production.
UPDATE: Clooney waxes on about journalism in this nauseating interview from “The Late Show.”
We have had this issue where power, kind of, hates the fourth estate. They hate journalism and my father’s an anchorman and news man and we’ve always believed in the idea of when the other three estates: the judiciary branch and the executive branch, when they all fail you, you need that fourth estate, right.
America badly needed the Fourth Estate when one party covered up their leader’s obvious senility. They stood down instead.
So did Clooney until it became convenient to speak up.
