Bening, Alda, Beatty, Dreyfuss, Douglas, Sheen, Sorkin and Meathead…in Fantasyland
Yesterday afternoon, I had the fortune to see Annette Bening. I was leaving the Governor’s 
Anaheim Hills rally (read about that here and here) and holding court outside was the CTA bus, captained by Union-Thug-In-Chief Barbara Kerr. Aboard the "S.S. Dues Extraction" (my name for their bus) was also the Hollywood dynamic duo, Annette Bening and her ersatz-politican husband, Warren Beatty.
It was only later that I connected some very odd dots (this post demonstrates the strange way that my mind works). I recalled when I was surfing the web for California news stories yesterday, I ran across an obscure story in the Ventura Star, "City to toss party for fictional TV senator."
This story talks about how the Ventura County city of Santa Paula has ‘adopted as their favorite son’
fictional Republican United States Senator Arnold Vinick who is running for President on the popular t.v. show The West Wing. Vinick is played by actor Alan Alda. Santa Paula even has a website devoted to Vinick.
Work with me here and you will get the connection to Bening…
Typical of Hollywood’s goofy left, they take great humor in casting for the role of the "Republican nominee" for President one of the entertainment industries most outspoken liberals in Alan Alda. I’m sure when they cast Alda for the part, he must have grinned, thinking about how much he would really have to act the part, since there is nothing Republican about him.
It made me think of another movie, The American President (a great film, by the way) where, once again, the Hollywood elite had ‘fun’ finding one of Hollywood’s most far-left-tilted stars, Richard Dreyfuss, to play a Republican right-wing U.S. Senator running for President, Bob Rumsfeld.
Of course, before you think about any kind of ‘balance of irony’ where
they cast conservative or even moderate Republican actors to play the President in either The West Wing or The American President, think again. In these shows, they have the often-arrested-for-protesting Martin Sheen and the uber-leftist Michael Douglas playing Presidents Josia Bartlett and Andrew Shepard, respectively (funny, Sheen also plays Douglas’ Chief of Staff in The American President). 
The connection back to Annette Bening is that she plays the love interest of widowed President Shepard (Douglas) in The American President.
Then there are two brain-childs behind these shows, the West Wing’s Aaron Sorkin and The American President’s Rob Reiner. Sorkin has given tens of thousands of
dollars in recents years to liberal candidates and causes including a lot to California Senator Barbara Boxer. Reiner has given even more. Both pass the ultimate wack-o 
litmus test, as major donors to the candidacy of Howard Dean for President.
Somehow we circle back to Beatty and Reiner on the attack against the Governator.
Pretty soon we will all need to carry a flow chart in our pockets. I guess I’m as guilty as anyone for propping up this crew – as I watch The West Wing, loved The American President, and have enjoyed many of Reiner’s films — then again, I also love Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream…oops!
[I worked hard on the links, enjoy them!]