OPINION:
Oprah Winfrey and George Clooney each coughed up half a million dollars to donate to the “March for Our Lives” anti-gun rally that’s set for Washington, D.C., on March 24, organized in part by teens at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
No word yet on whether Oprah and Clooney, both of whom plan to attend the event, will leave at home their armed security guards.
Probably not, given they’ll be leaving the armed security bubble they call home. They’ll need the traveling guns.
The story should end there, crumpled and on the ground, torn and tossed to the side in a tangled mess called Hypocrisy. But these are liberals, and there are guns involved, so the old “do as I say, not as I do” adage applies. Head pats for bravery all around.
“Amal and I are so inspired by the courage and eloquence of these young men and women from Stoneman Douglas High School,” Clooney wrote, ABC News reported. “Our family will be there on March 24 to stand side by side with this incredible generation of young people from all over the country. … In the name of our children Ella and Alexander, we’re donating 500,000 dollars to help pay for this groundbreaking event. Our children’s lives depend on it.”
Oprah weighed in quickly on Twitter.
“Oh George, you are so brave and bold and ever so smart to use this national tragedy and these grieving and uneducated teens to exploit the evils of the Second Amendment and strip guns from everybody in America but the security guards who protect the rich …” she wrote.
Well, not really. She didn’t write that. But it was implied.
She put it this way instead: “George and Amal, I couldn’t agree with you more. I am joining forces with you and will match your $500,000 donation to ‘March For Our Lives.’ These inspiring young people remind me of the Freedom Riders of the 60s who also said we’ve had ENOUGH and our voices will be heard.”
Oh yes she did. She went there.
Ignorance leading ignorance. Blind leading blind.
Does anybody study the Constitution any more? How about U.S. history — America’s struggles against tyranny; America’s founding of God-given, not government-granted, rights; America’s reasons for including a Second Amendment?
Clooney and Oprah aren’t the only celebrities to donate $500,000 to this march. Hollywood director Steven Spielberg and Kate Capshaw each gave half a million, as well, saying: “The young students in Florida and now across the country are already demonstrating their leadership with a confidence and maturity that belies their ages.”
No. Radically calling for an end or drastic curb to gun rights is neither proper leadership nor maturity. It’s outright insane.
It places the blame for shootings on hunks of metal, not on the person holding the hunk of metal. If that’s logical, how come teens aren’t demanding the end of booze when one of their classmates dies from alcohol poisoning? Or the end of cars when one of their fellow students gets killed in a car crash?
This whole post-Florida shooting is a big exploitation party, pure and simple. The teens taking to the streets to demand an end to guns are exploiting this tragedy, the always-gun-hating media are exploiting the teens, the leftist gun control zealots are exploiting both — and now come the Hollywood pinheads, to pretend adoration for all the exploiters and altruism for the cause by dropping a few bucks and charting a path toward the D.C. cameras.
What makes it so hard to stomach is that the Hollywood types do so with armed security guards lurking in the not-so-distant background. That makes them not only exploiters, but hypocrites, as well.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley.
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