Linda Bloodworth-Thomason Admits Hypocrisy - sort of

Today's Hollywood Reporter has a long news/opinion piece by Linda Bloodworth-Thomason. She is a long time friend of Hillary Clinton (first image from 1993 Linda and her husband are with the Clintons)

Linda is also a long time Hollywood celebrity. She was an actress,then in management and eventually a producer. Perhaps her most famous product was the TV show Designing Women which was on from 1986 thru 1993. 

In her news/opinion piece, Linda provides numerous examples of decades of Hollywood big shots harrassing, abusing and intimidating women. 

So far, no big deal. However, in the piece was this "admission",

"... I, myself, was a member of a "Let's Bring Harvey Weinstein Down" lunch club, and I don't even work in features. However, I will be the first to admit that clearly delineated moral choices can still be painfully complex where friendship is involved. One of the best friends I will ever have and a man I love dearly, former President Bill Clinton, has certainly taxed my feminist conscience, but always without diminishing my affection. I even helped write his apology to the nation for his own sexual misconduct, was sitting next to him when he delivered it, and believe to this day it was based on something that was none of our business. And yes, some may call it hypocritical, but I confess to having had no problem warning at least three top-level Democratic operatives against allowing Harvey Weinstein to host political fundraisers...."

Linda (second image is from about 1998) admits (or brags) about helping Clinton in the Lewinsky affair but is silent about the fact that she helped Clinton in the Flowers affair.  

She also doesn't mention the Paula Jones case, the Kathy Wiley case or the Juanita Broderick case (last image), all three of which may have involved assault (possibly rape in the Broderick case). Another interesting point in the piece is that Linda 'confesses' to warning top level operatives about Harvey Weinstein but not to warning Hillary or Bill Clinton.

Yes, it is a confession, but not, by a long way, a full confession.



Linda Bloodworth-Thomason's article in the Hollywood Reporter is here

The Problem with Calling Hollywood Hypocritical in the Harvey W case

Irwin sent me a op ed in his local paper. Jonah Goldberg, the author, titled it, "Weinstein scandal leaves a trail of hypocrisy" 

Basically, Goldberg, considers 'Hollywood' hypocritical for criticizing President Trump for once saying he would grab a woman by her genitals (even if he never did it) but left Harvey Weinstein alone to terrorize women in Hollywood for decades.

There are two problems with this.

1. Hollywood is not a person. Hollywood is made up of many people and different people at different times and it is even not clear to me if anyone has a coherent and generally accepted definition of what "Hollywood" is. Thus you really can't say "Hollywood is hypocritical" without naming individuals who are hypocritical.

2. Let's focus on some people in particular, say Meryl Streep (first image) and Hillary Clinton (second image).  Meryl, famously thanked Harvey in an award acceptance by referring to him as God. Hillary, has accepted millions of dollars to her various campaigns, to the Clinton foundation and so forth.  Why are we sure Meryl and Hillary knew about Harvey's sexual depredations. Is it even remotely possible that Meryl would refer to Harvey as God if she knew? Wouldn't Hillary have had something prepared to say the day the NYTimes blew the cover on Harvey if Hillary would have known about it?  For that matter why would Hillary allow fawning images of herself with Harvey? Meryl and Hillary may have been convincing themselves that the 'nice' man who was well behaved and intelligent when they saw him was well behaved all the time. This type of thinking, an element of the condition sometimes called 'Denial', is pretty common. It is a big part of why dictators get loyal followers. It is a big part of why scam artists are successful. 

Also, whatever else may be said about Harvey Weinstein, at least it must be acknowledged that he abused grown women. There are worse people. For example, Roman Polanski (in the image he is with Johnny Depp), was charged with and pleaded guilty to with rape (by drugging) of a 13 year old. Whoopi Goldberg famously defended that as not "Rape-Rape" on the View in 2009. 

 Corey Feldman (who starred in Goonies, Gremlins and other movies) gave an interview in 2011 stating that he and many others had been molested as child actors. Barbara Walters criticized Corey (a still of this is the 4th image) for making this interview (as it damaged many 'good people' in Hollywood).  I assume Barbara doesn't believe Corey for the same or a similar reason Meryl didn't think Harvey was a predator -if Barbara actually knows about the child molesting and is covering it up, she is a monster 

Corey has not gone as far as identifying specific individuals. Other people have done so. On the left is an accused molester (he pleaded 'no contest' and served time) and his purported victim. The accused is named, "Martin Weiss" and he was a talent scout who specialized in finding and managing youngsters for Hollywood companies.




The Goldberg op ed is here.
The youtube in which Meryl Streep refers to Harvey Weinstein as God is here.
Story from the Guardian about Roman Polanski is here.
Whoopi's defense of Polanski is here.
Barbara Walters criticism of Corey Feldman on the View is here.
Ten Disturbing Pedophile stories, including the one with my namesake, is here.

Associated Press tries out a hypocrisy call out

 The Associated Press had a news release that used the phrase "... ties to Weinstein open [Steve] Bannon [former adviser to President Trump] up to charges of hypocrisy...."

What are these 'ties'.

Well back in 2005, Bannon had a DVD distribution business called Genius Products (it was more than just DVDs but, if I understand correctly, all the rest of the business was small compared to the DVD part).

Bannon developed a partnership with The Weinstein Company that year. Bannon reaped some income from that partnership but the Genius Products company went into bankruptcy in 2011.

There is no evidence that Bannon met Harvey Weinstein. Nor is Bannon a Hollywood insider. Nor is Bannon known to keep up with Hollywood affairs.

Actually, the AP probably knew a lot more about Weinstein's sexual assault history that Bannon.

I'd have to give the AP's try at hypocrisy documentation a failing grade.

The AP news is in the Minneapolis Star Tribune here.

Two Hypocrisy related Resignations

HHS Secretary Tom Price (first image is of Secretary Price) resigned on September 29.  He had run up a significant travel bill using chartered flights.  As a US Representative he had criticized others for excess travel costs funded by taxpayers.

The NYTimes article on this is here.
An article from Fortune is here.
A Washington Post article is here.

Price's resignation letter (a link in the NYTimes article contains this) doesn't admit fault (he claimed that because of scheduling, charters were necessary) but he had offered to reimburse the government for some of the costs (the second image is the inside of a Gulfstream, the kind of plane frequently  chartered).

For my part, I found, while in the government that high level officials spent a lot of time and effort going to conferences, which perhaps boosted egos but had essentially no impact. I was a conference organizer several times and found out that a lot of technical people want high level officials at their conferences even though, post conference, they admit that the high level official hadn't said anything important (or frequently didn't even understand the subject they were talking about). 

Notwithstanding this, many high level people seem to actually believe in that their mere presence at conferences is vital and/or important so this may be a case of magical thinking rather than hypocrisy.

 A few days later, US Representative Tim Murphy (R-PA18) resigned. The third image is Representative Murphy - his resignation is effective October 21.

He was pro life (although I don't know whether he is against all abortions or only in those after a certain period of the pregnancy - this would be important in determining hypocrisy) in his policies.

He had recently had an extra marital affair with a

woman (on the left in the 4th image- her name is Dr Shannon Edwards) and had suggested she get an abortion if she were pregnant (she wasn't). 

The Pittsburgh Post Gazette has a report on the affair here (which also implies that the Congressman doesn't actually know exactly what his policy is on abortion)

The NYTimes has a report on the resignation here. 

The Daily Mail has a report here (it has the image of Dr. Edwards above.)