Obama-Worshipper George Clooney On Mohammed Film: It’s “Unfortunate†People Have First Amendment RightsI guess it could be worse, Bette Midler wanted the filmmaker charged with murder.Quote:
When I saw George Clooney, who is one of Argo’s producers, at a private screening and dinner for the film at the Time Warner Center on Tuesday night, I ran my idea by him. Was there any lesson, I asked, to be learned from the controversy and the tragedy that Innocence of Muslims provoked? I’m not a big fan of asking celebrities their opinions about international or national affairs, but I’ve come to admire Clooney’s political activism and his understanding of the way the world really works, as well as his humanitarian spirit. (In March, he was arrested outside the Sudanese embassy in Washington for protesting the country’s blockage of food and aid to its own starving people.)
After listening to my take on Argo and Innocence of Muslims, Clooney suggested that I was making a bit of a leap, but he did answer my question. For one thing, he said, “I’m not quite sure that those diplomats did die as a result of that movie. It seems more like that was a coordinated effort by Al Qaeda†to make a statement on the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on U.S. soil. But getting to the root of my question, Clooney told me: “Freedom of speech means you have to allow idiots to speak, and that’s the unfortunate thing.†“This guy clearly wanted to create problems,†he continued referring to Nakoula Basseley, the Egyptian immigrant who appears to have masterminded the making of Innocence of Muslims. Clooney added that he saw part of the YouTube video: â€It made me mad and I’m not Muslim,†he said. “It made me mad for the quality of film that it was, more than anything. But the simple truth is that in order to make [democracy] work, the idiots get to have their say, too. And that’s unfortunate.â€