Will Smith hearts Hitler. Wait, what?

From the moral outrage department, movie star (and former Fresh Prince) Will Smith has apparently been taking flak for the last couple of days for a remark he made to a Scottish newspaper that Hitler "didn't wake up going, 'Let me do the most evil thing I can do today.' ... I think he woke up in the morning and using a twisted, backwards logic, he set out to do what he thought was 'good.'"

As of Monday, the Jewish Defamation league, according to TMZ, was "calling on Barack Obama [whom Smith has publicly supported] to repudiate Smith's comments, and [wanted] theaters to pull Smith's new flick 'I Am Legend' from their screens," saying that his words, "spit on the memory of every person murdered by the Nazis. His disgusting words stick a knife in the backs of every veteran who fought (and sometimes died) to save the world from the intentions of Adolf Hitler." For his part, Smith subsequently tried to defuse the situation, issuing a statement that said, "It is an awful and disgusting lie. It speaks to the dangerous power of an ignorant person with a pen. I am incensed and infuriated to have to respond to such ludicrous misinterpretation. Adolf Hitler was a vile, heinous vicious killer responsible for one of the greatest acts of evil committed on this planet."

Seriously, guys? Are we really that sensitive today that you can't even mention Hitler except to denounce him? I think we're all in agreement here that the Holocaust was a travesty (minus a few crazies, like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Ron Paul), and I'm pretty sure that Will "Get Jiggy With It" Smith is not a neo-Nazi, so what exactly are we getting so riled up about? Frankly, while I don't necessarily agree with Smith's comments -- personally, I'm more inclined to believe that Hitler's rhetoric was a calculated effort to gain power through hatemongering (kind of like President Bush's...) -- I don't think that they are particularly radical. He didn't say that Hitler was a fun guy to be around, or that the Jews had it coming, he just said that the Nazis thought they were doing the right thing. And...?

Of course, I'm not entirely sure what business Will Smith -- star of "Wild Wild West" and "I, Robot" -- has waxing philosophical about Hitler's motivations, but I don't think he should be crucified for it, either. On the bright side, maybe this will finally teach celebrities not to act like they're experts on everything under the sun just because they read a script about WWII once, or teach the rest of the world not to listen to them if they're talking about anything besides how they did their own stunts (probably not, though, on both counts).

On a deeper level, I think we need, as a society, to be able to discuss historical events like the Holocaust without having to fear this kind of unmitigated backlash, because all this ideological bullying does is to alienate anyone with a different point of view from our own. I know that these are sensitive subjects for a lot of people, but freedom of speech is guaranteed by the Constitution in order to facilitate debate in this country -- are we really choosing, of our own accord, to undermine that?

At least if Will Smith thought that people were "basically good" before this shitstorm, he's probably nice and cynical like the rest of us now. What would Uncle Phil say?

Sources:
Will Smith angry over Hitler comment interpretation [CNN]
Will Smith -- Hitler, Schmitler; He Wasn't That Bad [TMZ]
Smith: 'Hitler was a good person' [Yahoo News]

Zoey 101 got knocked up

So, the big news around the Internet this afternoon (when I awoke from my finals-induced coma) was that Britney Spears' 16 year-old sister and star of the hit Nickelodeon show "Zoey 101," Jamie Lynn Spears, is three months pregnant. Normally, I wouldn't blog about such a wildly unsurprising story but 1) I need to get back into my groove and 2) I promised my sister (consider this a thank you for being 18 and baby-less).

Look, I know that there are probably a lot of good jokes to be made here but I don't really have much to say about all this. The Spears family is super-fertile and kind of trashy, so saying that one of them is pregnant is kind of like saying that Lindsay Lohan fell off the wagon -- we all knew it was coming, it was only a matter of when. I know that Jamie Lynn is cute and seems nice enough and everyone was hoping that she would break the chain here and avoid becoming a train wreck but, let's be honest, you can't fight science. Ultimately, I guess it's sort of admirable that she's trying to do the right thing by keeping the baby, if you're into that sort of thing -- after all, she did meet her boyfriend at church (Jesus must be thrilled...) -- although, if it were my kid, the whole situation would have been taken care of faster than you can say "life begins at conception" (sorry, J-man).

In fact, it's pretty hard to feel bad for the Spears family when Jamie Lynn's mother, Lynne (incidentally, her father is named Jamie -- get it???) apparently brokered a $1 million deal with OK! Magazine, giving them exclusive rights to the story. I know that Jamie Lynn's career as the next Disney Channel star to make the foray into Hollywood super-stardom is probably over but, somehow, I think she's going to be okay. After all, if you're going to be 16 and pregnant, it helps to have $1 million in your pocket.

All in all, the story is kind of sad but, hey, that's what happens when you refuse to teach teenagers about the birds and the bees. I know that there are a lot of people in this country dead-set on occupying some moral high-ground, but the fact is that hormones are powerful and kids are stupid, and there's not much you can do about it. So, for all of the parents out there worried about the message this is sending to your children, by all means tell them that this girl made a mistake but don't neglect to tell them how not to make it. When the time comes (and it's coming sooner than you think), talk to your kids about sex, and then go vote Democrat so we can teach sexual education in the schools. Or, just lock them up until college. Either way.

And let's all keep our fingers crossed for Hannah Montana (at least until she turns 18 -- then she's fair game...)

Sources:
How do you talk to kids about Britney's sister? (CNN)
Jamie Lynn's $1 Million Paycheck and Dad's Pissed (Popsugar)
Jamie Lynn Spears is pregnant (IDLYITW)

Larry Craig might be gay

And the hits just keep on coming.

The Idaho Statesman, in the dirtiest newspaper article that I have ever read, has brought forward five men who are alleging homosexual encounters with embattled Sen. Larry Craig (R-Id.). The men, all of whom are homosexuals themselves, are apparently dismayed by what they see as Craig's "hypocritical" anti-gay attitude and voting record, and especially the emphatic denial he made on national television in August (shortly after the discovery that he had plead guilty in June to soliciting sex from an undercover police officer) that "I am not gay, I never have been gay."

The accounts are spread out over a roughly 25 year period, and range from being whisked away to a Capitol Hill house after meeting Craig in a gay strip club (and then being given $20 after sex and told "I can buy and sell your ass a thousand times over") to being propositioned in an airport bathroom in a manner similar to the one described by Craig's arresting officer. Perhaps the most damning allegation comes from Mike Jones, the former Colorado-based gay male escort most famous for destroying evangelical minister Ted Haggard's career, who claims that Craig paid him $200 for sex sometime between November 2004 and March 2005.

Now, Mike Jones must be the worst gay male escort ever because I'm pretty sure the first rule of prostitution is that you don't go around outing your clients (that being said, the dude is like gay-Republican kryptonite...) In all seriousness, though, this story is a lot of things (the word "disturbing" comes to mind quite often) but mostly it is sad, because even if some of these guys are lying, I think it's still pretty clear that Larry Craig is not a straight man. And there's nothing wrong with that, except for the deep-seated self-loathing that has caused him to be such an outspoken opponent of homosexuality and gay rights.

In fact, if he wasn't such a dick, I would feel bad for the guy. Like I said when a similar story came out earlier this week about Trent Lott (with whom Craig incidentally started a barbershop quartet called "The Singing Senators"), it's really unfortunate -- and we are all responsible for this -- that we live in a society so homophobic that some gay men still feel like they have to seek each other out in the anonymity of airport bathrooms. But, as far as I'm concerned, anyone who gets a 0 rating from the Human Rights Campaign and suggests -- as Craig did in 2005 -- that the flooded areas of New Orleans should be abandoned because "fraud...is in the culture of the state of Louisiana" deserves whatever he gets. And, if the last four months have been any indication, that's going to be a lot of negative press until he finally finishes out his term in shame.

I guess $20 doesn't buy what it used to.

Sources:
More gay men describe sexual encounters with U.S. Sen. Craig [Idaho Statesman]
Larry Craig [Wikipedia]

Trent Lott might have some skeletons in his closet

For anyone wondering why the esteemed Sen. Trent Lott (R-Mississippi) suddenly decided to announce his retirement yesterday, despite having been re-elected to a fourth term in 2006, there may be an answer on the horizon.

BigheadDC.com, a political blog based in the nation's capital, is reporting that the former majority leader -- who was widely criticized in 2002 for his comment that if renowned racist Strom Thurmond had been elected president, "we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years" (like, you know, the Civil Rights Movement) and once compared homosexuality to kleptomania -- may have frequented a Seattle-based gay male escort.

Now, I've never heard of BigheadDC.com and I normally wouldn't spread such an unsubstantiated rumor. But, frankly, I don't like Trent Lott -- he strikes me as a bigot and a disgrace to the United States Senate. There's a decent chance that you'll never hear another word about this story because it just isn't true but, God help me, I hope that it is. While it's always sad to see someone who can't face his own identity, if anyone deserves to join the ranks of self-loathing hatemongers like Ted Haggard and Larry Craig, it's this guy.

You can read the original story here

Sources:
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/politics/bulletin/bulletin_071127.htm
http://www.hatecrime.org/subpages/hatespeech/claremont.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A37288-2002Dec10?language=printer