Ann Coulter
Saddam Hussein has put the people of Iraq on an "Orange" alert this week in response to Iraqi intelligence picking up an increase in "chatter" out of Hollywood. Actors go into a frenzy whenever they sense that world events could pre-empt their appearances on "Entertainment Tonight." They've been in March Hare mode lately, so Iraq is in a state of high alert. For the past few months, Saddam had been lulled into a sense of security. We haven't heard from Barbra Streisand since she turned with a vengeance to figuring out the difference between Iran and Iraq. George Clooney disappeared, hoping people would forget his inside tip that, in the rush to war, Bush had cut a deal with France so they wouldn't complain when we attack Iraq. That was a month ago, and the French are still resolutely whining. Apparently even the French have more manhood than George Clooney. So things had grown quiet in America's headlong "rush to war," which we've been talking about for over a year now. But in the past week, the anti-war "chatter" out of Hollywood has increased. Singers, models, actors and vegan hysteric Kim Basinger have all come out against the war. Liberals see themselves as part of a deployment. Richard Gere's analysis of the war was: "I keep asking myself where all this personal enmity between George Bush and Saddam Hussein comes from. It's like the story of Captain Ahab and the great white whale from 'Moby-Dick.'" Gere refused to comment when asked whether he had read "Moby-Dick." Fresh from receiving a lifetime achievement award for his geopolitical insights, Dustin Hoffman said that Bush "has taken the events of 9-11 and has manipulated the grief of the country, and I think that's reprehensible." He explained that "this war is about what most wars are about: hegemony, money, power and oil." Hoffman refused comment when asked to spell "hegemony." Madonna has put out the word that her next music video contains a shocking anti-war message, including footage of simulated dead Iraqi babies, which is expected to be a bigger draw than her latest movie, "Swept Away," featuring footage of Madonna in a bathing suit. Three days after the Sept. 11 attacks, Madonna was on stage in Los Angeles exhorting the audience to pray for no retaliation against the perpetrators. Between songs and simulated live sex acts, the always circumspect gay-disco chanteuse explained: "Violence begets violence." When it comes to negative reviews, Madonna's publicist takes a more sanguine view of "retaliation." Even model Kate Moss took time out from her drug habit to really wrap her head around this war issue. Terrified that an attack on Iraq could lead to an attack on Colombia and dry up the supply, she is foursquare against the war. The mascot of the anti-war movement is Janeane Garofalo. Upon hearing Garofalo's pronouncements on Iraq, her manager sputtered, "Ten years in the business and now she's making with the jokes?" When a feminist as strident as Garofalo is defending the Hussein regime, you have to wonder if her newfound sobriety has hit a rough patch. One imagines Saddam Hussein watching Janeane Garofalo on television with more perplexity than satisfaction. Garofalo has said that "dropping bombs on the Iraqis is not going to disarm Saddam." No, it will kill him. That's good enough. Trading in her Gen-X sneer for a nitwit's hysteria, Garofalo warned: "America will pay a very, very high, irrevocable price for this!" The lemon pucker puss said extremist groups will strike us "if we do this war." Things were going just great before we began to "do this war" – that's if you don't count the unpleasantness of Sept. 11. To state the manifestly obvious: Extremist groups are going to hit us eventually anyway. Let's make it a matter of honor and see what they've got. In a modern version of the Iran-Iraq war, actor Sean Penn is accusing Steve Bing, Hollywood producer and general degenerate, of blacklisting him from a film in retaliation for his peacenik activities. (Bing, you'll recall, was our featured Democrat a few months back.) What a smart president would do in these circumstances is sell arms to the weaker party and use the proceeds to fund anti-Saddam contras, then sit back and let the Democrats work themselves into a frenzy about an alleged technical violation of the Boland Amendment. In addition to increased "chatter" from these casting-couch philosophers, Iraqi intelligence has been keeping an eye on a gas explosion on the Senate floor. Not a celebrity except for the substance abuse, Sen. Teddy Kennedy was lowered by crane to the Senate floor last week to denounce the case for war. Secretary of State Colin Powell was just wrapping up his presentation to the United Nations when Kennedy began his rebuttal. (Kennedy's position on Iraq is: Let's cross that bridge when we get to it.) Even the Iraqis listened to the case against Iraq with more of an open mind than Kennedy did. They at least paused for a moment before responding. Now that the Iraqis have responded, we can add one more charge to the case against Iraq: Saddam is plagiarizing Teddy Kennedy.