A Note of Gratitude for Meryl Streep
Thank you, Meryl Streep.
I often have been annoyed by Hollywood stars who use award shows to make political statements, although I have made exceptions for those who support causes that I also happen to support. Call me human.
I would have been delighted by Streep's pitch for press freedom and the Committee to Protect Journalists even if -- full disclosure -- I were not a member of its board.
Streep, who supported Trump's Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, criticized Trump in her speech for mocking a New York Times reporter with a disability. Trump denies that he was mocking the reporter. Yet videotape appears quite clearly to show him entertaining a rally crowd by mocking the reporter.
Of course, Trump responded to Streep by ignoring her, right? After all, a president-elect has more important things to worry about than the displeasure of a Hollywood star, right? Yes, I'm kidding. After all, we're talking about Donald Trump, long-time believer, as one of his biographers put it, of "counter-punching" even the mildest attack.
Trump, who has praised Streep's talents as "excellent" in the past, lashed back this time with typical Trumpian excess. In three tweets the next morning he called the winner of Golden Globes, Academy Awards, Emmies and numerous other awards over her nearly four-decade career "one of the most over-rated actresses in Hollywood" and a "Hillary flunky."
Considering the source, Streep should consider all that a compliment.
But she also had a more serious message about the rise of intolerance as a campaign tool. "You and all of us in this room really belong to the most vilified segments in American society right now," she told the audience at the event which is held by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, repeating a joke told earlier by fellow actor Hugh Laurie, "Think about it, Hollywood, foreigners and the press."
She then called on "the famously well-healed Hollywood Foreign Press (Association) and all of us in our community to join me in supporting the Committee to Protect Journalists because we are going to need them going forward, and they'll need us to safeguard the truth."
Yet, as partisan as the Trump-Streep clash may sound, it is important to note that the CPJ is nonpartisan in its advocacy for press freedom.
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