Saturday Funnies

Yesterday, Richard Dreyfuss and Alec Baldwin provided some entertainment with their over the top, loony rhetoric -- portraying the Hollywood Left's kookiness with Oscar caliber deftness.

Today, Robert Redford sends in an amusing performance via a Newsweek interview with David Gates.

Q&A: Robert Redford


(Excerpt)

How did you start getting obsessed with Watergate?

After the break-in, I heard some reporters suggest there was more to it, that it probably went toward Nixon. But nobody wanted to f--- with him. He gave me an award once—I was 13, he was a senator. I remember being struck by what a bad vibe I got from the guy.

What's the political landscape look like to you today?

Now you pick up the paper and there's a Watergate every day. I don't think anyone's connecting the dots and saying to the public, "Wake up, folks, because you could end up in a totalitarian nightmare, wondering what happened to your country."

Does your movie-star-ness keep you from being taken seriously?

You work hard to move away from it, and you're only partly successful. If I go up there to speak about an issue, they're playing "The Sting."

"A Watergate every day"?

Oh, come on. That's just wacky.

I think the American Psychiatric Association should conduct a study of the brain activity of Hollywood players. So many of them seem to fall victim to pathological delusions. Surely, there's a mental disorder there waiting to be identified.

Redford warns that America is on the edge of slipping into a "totalitarian nightmare." He sounds more than a bit flaky, doesn't he?

I think it's funny that Redford considers his star status to be a hindrance when it comes to being taken seriously.

Perhaps the opinions of this has-been aren't given much credence because of the content of his statements. It's his extremist, outlandish comments that serve to marginalize him, not the matinee idol role he occupied thirty years ago.

I honestly don't think it has anything to do with his stint in "The Sting."