MoveOn Party Turns Ugly as Celebrities Attack Bush, Republicans
By Jimmy Moore
Talon News
January 14, 2004

An event honoring the winner of an anti-Bush contest sponsored by liberal political group MoveOn.org Monday night turned into an assault on President George W. Bush by the celebrity guests featured in the program.

Talon News reported last week that Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie has asked the Democrat Party as well as the Democrat candidates for president to immediately denounce the "political hate speech" found in two ads comparing Bush with Nazi leader Adolph Hitler featured on the "Bush in 30 Seconds" contest sponsored by MoveOn.org.

Talon News was one of the first news outlets to report on this Bush-bashing contest beginning in October. It was judged by some of the most liberal Democrat supporters in America today, including outspoken Bush hater and movie producer Michael Moore, Democrat strategists James Carville and Donna Brazile, as well as actors Jack Black, Janeane Garofalo, Margaret Cho, and Gus Van Sant. These judges chose the winning ad among the 15 finalists for Monday night's ceremony.

Although it was dubbed as an awards ceremony at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City for the controversial contest, much of the left-wing rhetoric by the speakers at the event was blatantly directly at the Republican National Committee, members of the Bush administration, and Bush himself.

Moore, who openly loathes President Bush, responded to the Hitler comparisons to Bush in typical fashion.

"I don't blame [Republicans] for being angry about that," Moore told Newsweek. "It would have been good enough just to compare Bush to Bush. You don't need Hitler when you already got Bush."

Singer Moby, who was responsible for organizing the event on Monday night, expressed that he had "contempt" for Bush and said Bush is a "big fat f**ing liar." Moby did not back up his comments with further information.

Additionally, Moby told Newsweek that Vice President Dick Cheney looked like a "Troglodyte" to him and opined that Cheney is most likely the one who is actually making all the public policy decisions behind the scenes for Bush.

Singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright told the group gathered at the event that he was opposed to most of the Bush administration policies such as "tax cuts and whatever."

Garofalo, who served as emcee for the event, stated she is tired of the "corporate media disinformation campaign we have to live with on a daily basis."

Actress Julia Stiles told the audience that she feared the troops serving in Iraq would misinterpret her protests against the war and believe that she is against them because of it.

"I was worried that some soldiers over in Iraq who are actually younger than I am would see some salacious report on MSNBC and think that I was attacking them and not the government that put them there," Stiles expressed in an excerpt from the Drudge Report.

Stiles continued by saying, "And I was afraid that [television and radio talk show host] Bill O'Reilly would come and, with a shotgun at my front door, shoot me for being unpatriotic."

Comedian and author Al Franken, who signed a one-year deal on Tuesday with Progressive Media to host a live, three-hour liberal radio show this year, excused his and MoveOn.org's anti-war stance by claiming they still "support and love our troops."

"I'm a last-minute substitution, former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill was supposed to be the presenter, but unfortunately he was murdered," Franken told the audience, according to Fox News.

Chuck D, a rapper from the group Public Enemy, described the Bush administration as the "cancer of civilization."

"Americanization is like McDonaldization," he stated with no explanation of what he was attempting to communicate, according to the Drudge Report.

"But truly, seriously, quite frankly, the people are smart enough to realize that the world is important and we only have one life," Chuck D told the audience, according to Drudge.

He said that the country is "tired of this bullsh**, or better than that, tired of this Bushsh**."

Concluding his remarks, Chuck D took a jab at the Secretary of State, President, and Vice President.

"Son of a Bush and his crew is at it again, because, we do not want 8 years run by a Colin, a Bush, and a Dick," Chuck D said to thunderous applause from the partisan crowd, according accounts from the event.

But the most incendiary attacks against Bush and the Republican National Committee came from comedian Margaret Cho.

"Despite all of this stupid bullsh** that the Republican National Committee, or whatever the fu** they call them, that they were saying that they're all angry about how two of these ads were comparing Bush to Hitler? I mean, out of thousands of submissions, they find two. They're like fu**ing looking for Hitler in a haystack," Cho told the audience, according to the Drudge Report.

But Cho said Bush should not be compared to Hitler because he is not as good a leader as the instigator of the Holocaust was.

"I mean, George Bush is not Hitler," Cho stated. "He would be if he fu**ing applied himself. I mean he just isn't."

She continued by saying that this last year has proven how "stupid Republicans are."

She made fun of former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore and the Ten Commandments issue that took place last year by ridiculing the Bible and people of faith and offered them as an example of how "stupid" Republicans are.

"People are protesting there and like, I think it could have been solved so much easier if they had just placed a golden calf next to the statue and then people would have started worshipping that," Cho stated, according to the Drudge Report.

She continued, "And then they could have moved the Ten Commandments to Bush's office -- which he needs them, desperately. Or maybe he needs a new version of the Ten Commandments -- George W. Bush's Ten Commandments: Thou shalt not steal ... votes. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's ... country. Thou shalt not kill ... for oil. Thou shalt not take grammar ... in vain."

Cho added to her ranting, "I mean, whatever fu**ing happened to separation of church and state? I mean, you can't like, impose your god on my god. God has many names. God is God, God is Jehovah, God is Allah, God is Buddah, God is [Destiny's Child singer] Beyonce. You know, you cannot impose your God on other people."

Shifting gears to the issue of same-sex marriage, Cho says Bush has the "weirdest stance" on the issue.

"What he says about it is, well, 'well, we're all sinners.' No we're not! Just because somebody ate an apple one time does not make us all sinners. And if it was from the tree of knowledge, I think she should have eaten more than one. Possibly even baked a pie," Cho stated according to Drudge.

She added, "I don't understand the whole same-sex marriage thing. [Bush] was quoted by saying, 'well, you you uh, just gotta take the speck out of your own eye before you take the co** out of your neighbor's'," mocking the president by speaking in a Southern accent.

This latest event echoes another star-studded event that Talon News reported on last month as a group of liberal Hollywood actors and political activists attended a similar "Hate Bush" party at the Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, California.

In a related story, conservative group RightMarch.com is still taking out full-page ads in newspapers in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, states with Democrat caucuses over the next few weeks. The ads echo the Republican National Committee's call for the Democrat presidential candidates to denounce the Hitler ads promoted by MoveOn.org.