A nice antidote to this other Fifth column article. (Hat tip to lucianne.com)
I’m sitting in the L.A. airport as some nice looking fellow distributes leaflets comparing the educational qualifications of President George W. Bush and his top aides and those of his detractors in the movie industry. Lib-left members of today’s so-called entertainment world spend as much time hurling slurs at Bush and his officials as they do making bad movies or records. Now, I’ve spent just about as much time in this airport as I spent with my ex-wife, so rather than kill even more time in the bars, I headed to an Internet outlet to check out the information on the leaflet and also research some of the movies these "stars" have appeared in.
Words such as "moronic" and "idiotic’ leave the lips of the multi-millionaire stage hands when they talk about Bush’s team. So let’s carefully compare the academic qualifications of the Bush entourage and their often hysterical detractors in the entertainment world. - George Bush himself received a BA from Yale and MBA from Harvard. He served as an F-102 pilot in the Texas National Guard.
- Vice-President Dick Cheney earned a BA in 1965 and an MA in 1966, both in political science, from the University of Wyoming.
- Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld attended Princeton, one of the most prestigious U.S. universities, after winning a scholarship based on his intellect. He served in the U.S. Navy as an aviator between 1954-57.
- Secretary of State Colin Powell came from an impoverished black immigrant family and was initially educated in New York public schools. He graduated from City College of New York with a BA in geology, later obtaining an MBA from George Washington University.
- Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge was raised in a working-class family in public housing in Erie, Penn. He earned a scholarship to Harvard, and graduated with honours in 1967. After a year at the Dickinson School of Law, he was drafted into the infantry and awarded a Bronze Star for Valour in Vietnam.
- National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice enrolled in the University of Denver at age 15, and graduated at 19 with a BA in political science in 1974. She obtained a masters from the University of Notre Dame in 1975, and a PhD from the University of Denver in 1981.
Now to the tarnished stars:- Singer and actress Barbra Streisand, whose best-known movies are A Star is Born and Yentl, managed to complete high school, as did Pretty Woman’s Julia Roberts.
- Baghdad’s favourite son, Sean Penn, now starring in Mystic River, is also in that league, as is Ed Asner, of The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Lou Grant.
- Martin Sheen, who actually plays the president of the U.S. in the TV show West Wing, flunked an examination to enter University of Dayton.
- Actress Jessica Lange, who starred in the remake of King Kong and Crimes of the Heart, dropped out of college in her first year.
- Actor Alec Baldwin, who starred in The Hunt for Red October and The Getaway, dropped out of George Washington University.
- Susan Sarandon, famed for Thelma and Louise, got a degree in acting from Catholic University of America in Washington. No real academic qualifications.
- Singer Rosemary Clooney’s nephew, George Clooney, now starring in Intolerable Cruelty, dropped out of the University of Kentucky. Rosemary must be turning in her grave.
- Director Michael Moore dropped out in his first year at University of Michigan. Moore makes "documentaries’ shown to contain as much fiction as fact.
- Of the Dixie Chicks, their less than melodious voices and warped notes surely speak for themselves. Searching for academic assessment would be superfluous.
In short, the celebrities know how to act like they’re smart, but they’re not so good at actually demonstrating it... |