Top 10 Worst Celebrity Dictator Endorsements (Part 1)

It seems to be happening more often these days, but history is replete with celebrities endorsing dictators  murderers and thugs, providing evidence that celebrity does not equate to intelligence or moral compass.  Here are the ten most egregious celebrity endorsements of dictators in the 20th and 21st centuries.  The definition of endorsement here is broad it includes deeds as well as words.  The ranking is based on a mix of three factors - the star power of the celebrities in question, the evilness of the endorsed dictator and the potential impact of the endorsement.

There are a few dishonorable mentions before we start with the list.  Hillary Swank and Jean Claude Van Damme attended a birthday bash held for Ramzan Kadyrov, the Kremlin-backed leader of Chechnya, responsible for torture, killings abductions and more by human rights groups.  Swank did later apologize but fell squarely in the camp of useful idiots at the time of the event.  Her apology was quickly accepted by the left, or at least at Huffington Post.  Useful idiots aren't as common as you think, and the left needs them. This doesn't make the list since attending the event was less an endorsement than just plain dumb.

Another dishonorable mention goes collectively to Beyonce, Usher, Mariah Carey, Nelly Furtado and 50 Cent for putting on a concert for the barbaric sons of the barbaric Libyan strongman Colonel Muammar Gaddafi and taking money for it.  They reportedly all agreed to donate the money to charity. Again, this is more a matter of not thinking through a situation rather than endorsing a dictator.  But to do business with someone so brutal and repressive, even through stupidity, is myopic and ill-informed.  In addition to donating the money, a clear no-brainer, condemning the leader would have been a courageous and meaningful distancing of themselves from the terrorist.

Hitler = Evil, no?

Here's one everyone can agree on - Hitler was evil. Right?  Obama with a Hitler moustache or Bush being called Bushitler is, or was crossing a line. Hitler = Evil.  Even those philosophically National Socialists would be hard pressed to defend him.  So what's the deal with Oliver Stone?

Oliver Stone - helping steer your votes

Wall Street 2, Gordon Gecko and "Greed Is Good" all courtesy of one Oliver Stone, are just about ready to hit theaters. Did this movie really need a sequel? Despite it's mediocrity (it wasn't bad, but it wasn't great that's for sure), apparently Oliver Stone felt the need to do a follow up. Considering the near total absolute, irreversible and catastrophic banking collapse that almost nearly just about destroyed America and the world, perhaps a sequel is timely.

Take a look at the trailer...

But really, this movie is more timely than it's following of the banking crisis. Liberal director Oliver Stone's release, which like it's predecessor will no doubt vilify bankers and Wall Street fat cats, certainly seems well positioned to dovetail with Obama's 2010 electioneering for Congressional Democrats. The President has chosen those exact same groups - bankers and Wall Street fat cats - to vilify in order to take the focus off of the Democrat super majorities and their foibles over 2009 and 2010. In essence, he's trying to shift the focus from bad government to bad banking. Ironically, it's the most transparent thing the government seems to have done during his tenure at the White House.

Still, it's a concern. Just as the media helped build up Obama in 2008, they and the likes of Stone, are likely to do the same repeatedly, over the course of this year. Expect A LOT of shouting and memes about the evil banks. The real culprits are the banks. We need to get a better handle on the banks. That's a lot of shouting for the GOP to overcome - they've got to keep the focus on the failed policies and bad ideas of the administration and not allow the public to fall for the misdirection.

What's worse, I can see this taking a specific and unwelcome turn over the summer against the GOP if the meme sticks. In July expect to see this argument;

The evil banks need better oversight. The Congress has enacted legislation to better regulate these companies. BUT either the GOP opposed it and clearly are still the party of corruption OR if the GOP supports it; we have listened, we've become post-partisan and the GOP agrees with our ideas - so we are fit to rule, therefore we deserve re-election.

That's a tough needle to thread for the GOP if they let the blame-the-banks rhetoric take hold this winter and spring. There has to be a concerted effort to keep the focus on the disastrous legislative year the Democrats had, and their foolish insistence on pressing ahead on a smarter-than-thou health care agenda the public does not support.

Another tool in keeping the focus on government is to point out that the Democrats have been vilifying other industries for the past year. Insurance companies were the scapegoats during health care reform. Now the attention is here. According to President Obama, you either work with him, or you are a special interest. That's the same as saying let's work together in one sentence and blaming Bush in the next one.

There are strategic implications to all of this for the GOP. That leads to my last point, and my next post - What does the GOP have as a strategy for 2010?

Oliver Stone's Latest Hackiness

Oliver Stone has a new 'historical' documentary series coming out on Showtime, and you won't believe this.

Really, you won't believe it, because it won't be believable, except maybe to the young and impressionable, and that's the sad part.

According to The Live Feed, Stone's next work, The Secret History of America, will put figures like Stalin, Mao and even Hitler in context. The idea is to look at them with respect to both the good and bad that they did. His example was that Stalin fought Germany for a period of the war, without much help from the Allies. True. And putting the context of why they came to power, the circumstance of their countries and why they had the visions they did, isn't a bad thing in and of itself. However, that phrase, 'in context' is in the hands of Oliver Stone. So it's his context, and that's bad, because he sees himself as the political middle.

And where he thinks the middle is, is a pretty leftward place. This becomes simply more trying to push the center to the left. Make no mistake, that's his goal.

Here are some Stone quotes from the article to prove the point.

"Obviously, Rush Limbaugh is not going to like this history and, as usual, we're going to get those kind of ignorant attacks," said Stone, who also also compared the experience of sympathizing with war criminals to making his "W" movie about George W. Bush. "I'm trying to understand somebody I thoroughly despised."

Notice the pre-emptive attack on possible criticisms from the right? Ignorant? You haven't even heard the criticism yet Mr. Stone. Gotta love how he despised Bush. But we're supposed to love Obama? Hypocrite.

"You can understand why Obama is following in Bush's footsteps in Afghanistan," Stone said."Obama is very much trapped, we believe, in that system. And so that's what we're going to try and show you -- the way it works."

The official start of the left meme -- "Hey it wasn't Obama's fault man. The War Machine had him trapped man." Nice. Instead of learning a lesson, they make an excuse. It seems to be the natural response from the lefty pundits and leadership. That and blame someone else on the right.

The project will also show lesser-known positive aspects of American history and unsung heroes. Stone eventually hopes to send "Secret History" to schools as a teaching curriculum.

"It would be a very different counterweight to what they're learning," Stone said. "Nobody is going to force it down anybody's throat."

Teaching cirriculum? Told ya. But what's this about not forcing it down anybody's throat? Students would have a choice here Mr. Stone? Hypocrite. The only choice he'd support I suspect, is on abortion.

"My father was a voracious New York Times reader," he said. "We consider that in The Middle. Sarah Palin would disagree."

Thanks for putting your own history into the proper context for us to understand your mindset Mr. Stone. Enough said.