Fresh from his battle with the East Coast media elitists, in the form of the cover of The New Yorker, Barack Obama finds himself targeted by liberal Hollywood and a onetime representative of the baby boom generation, in the form of beloved sixties relic Jon Voight. The fearless and batshit actor went after the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate in an editorial he wrote for the Moonie-funded newspaper The Washington Times. "We, as parents," writes the man now best known as Angelina Jolie's dad, "are well aware of the importance of our teachers who teach and program our children. We also know how important it is for our children to play with good-thinking children growing up. Sen. Barack Obama has grown up with the teaching of very angry, militant white and black people: the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Louis Farrakhan, William Ayers and Rev. Michael Pfleger. We cannot say we are not affected by teachers who are militant and angry. We know too well that we become like them, and Mr. Obama will run this country in their mindset." This kind of naive faith in the power of "teachers" to permanently shape the young minds to which they have gained access may be par for the course coming from the star of Conrack, but I'm not sure I really buy it. When I was a kid, there were of course adults around who did their best to "teach and program" me, and I probably show how little lasting impact they had on me every time I wake up in a city with paved roads and venture out into it while wearing shoes. But I digress. Voight, whose failure to be cast in the remake of The Manchurian Candidate is starting to look like one hell of a grievous oversight, opines that "The Democratic Party, in its quest for power, has managed a propaganda campaign with subliminal messages, creating a God-like figure in a man who falls short in every way. It seems to me that if Mr. Obama wins the presidential election, then Messrs. Farrakhan, Wright, Ayers and Pfleger will gain power for their need to demoralize this country and help create a socialist America."
"The Democrats," according to Voight, "have targeted young people, knowing how easy it is to bring forth whatever is needed to program their minds. I know this process well. I was caught up in the hysteria during the Vietnam era, which was brought about through Marxist propaganda underlying the so-called peace movement." At this point, the reader may begin to suspect that this whole op-ed is Voight's way of apologizing to his new, politically like-minded friends for having starred in, and won an Oscar for, Coming Home, a movie that reduced the Vietnam War to the message that a groovy windblown blond stud of a war protester--Voight's role--fucks better than an Army captain who believes in the war, even if the war protester is paraplegic. (And especially if the Army captain is played by Bruce Dern.) Voight, who was last seen sitting in the audience at the MTV Movie Awards applauding lustily at the news that his daughter had lost the trophy for Best Villain to Johnny Depp, also has some strong words for "Gen. Wesley Clark, who himself has shame upon him, having been relieved of his command, [and who] has done their bidding and become a lying fool in his need to demean a fellow soldier and a true hero." Voight, who himself has shame upon him, having starred in and co-written Lookin' to Get Out, believes that "If, God forbid, we live to see Mr. Obama president, we will live through a socialist era that America has not seen before, and our country will be weakened in every way." Obama will no doubt be counselled to ignore this double-barrelled assault on himself and those who taught and programmed him, but he may do so at his peril. Surely a man who, in this decade alone, has played both Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Howard Cosell is no ordinary celebrity crackpot.