Below The Beltway

Let’s get in the Wayback Machine and go back in time to 1995:

A chorus of angry voices was Hollywood’s reaction today to comments by Bob Dole, the Senate majority leader and leading Republican Presidential aspirant, who condemned entertainment executives for debasing the nation’s culture.

Across Hollywood, the consensus was that Mr. Dole’s comments, which he delivered to about 600 business leaders and Republican stalwarts on Wednesday night, would have little effect. “Hollywood is about entertaining large audiences,” said Thomas P. Pollock, the chairman of the MCA Motion Picture Group.

We’re not making films like ‘Casper’ or ‘Apollo 13′ to please Congress,” Mr. Pollock said. “We’re making them because that’s what the public wants to see.”

In fact, most movies now produced by studios are either romantic comedies, family films or the kind of big-budget violent comedy movies like “True Lies” that Mr. Dole actually extolled. What he denounced Wednesday night, in a speech in Los Angeles, were violent films like “True Romance” and “Natural Born Killers” as well as gangsta rap performers, who, in Mr. Dole’s words, “revel in mindless violence and loveless sex.”

Mr. Dole’s comments marked an escalation in his effort to increase his support among conservative voters by lashing out at Hollywood, a target in recent years of political figures who say that films, music and television are sapping the moral strength of the nation.

(…)

Mr. Tarantino, author of the film “True Romance,” angrily criticized Mr. Dole. “This is the oldest argument there is,” he said. “Whenever there’s a problem in society, blame the playwrights: ‘it’s their fault, it’s the theater that’s doing it all.”

He called Mr. Dole’s comments, “a cheap laugh.”

“My biggest problem with the statement is that it’s so disingenuous — he hasn’t even seen the movies. How can you take seriously someone talking about art he admittedly hasn’t seen? But then, that’s politics,” Mr. Tarantino said. “I’ll return Bob Dole the favor, and only listen to the soundbites of what he has to say.”

An aide to Mr. Dole acknowledged on Wednesday that the candidate had not actually seen the movies or heard the songs but had read the film reviews and the rap lyrics.

Criticizing something you haven’t actually seen or read. Where have we seen that one before ? Oh yeah.

On another note, after 13 years, I still haven’t figured out how Dole managed to finagle the Republican nomination for himself out of a field that actually had some quality candidates in it.

Seriously, out of a field that included Phil Gramm and Steve Forbes, we ended up with Bob Dole ? That election was lost the minute the GOP nomination was decided.