Oliver Stone has long been one of those self-described liberals who’s such an A-hole blowhard that he does a better job turning people off liberalism than the Hannities of the world ever could. Recently his son Sean, who’s filming a documentary about Iran, went on Bill O’Reilly to discuss his Valentine’s Day conversion to Islam and to say Mahmoud Ahmadinejad isn’t such a bad guy. Basically, it fit into the “Hollywood is a liberal propaganda machine” narrative so perfectly that Kirk Cameron celebrated with three Subway sandwiches (NONE FOR YOU, BELINDA!).
“Your association with Iran is interesting, since that country is an enemy to America,” O’Reilly says, as Stone smiles as if he expects to be grilled on the topic.
“Every time I had these conversations, I was very clear in saying, ‘you know, let’s stop with this down-with-America nonsense,’” Stone answers. “It really helped for the American image, frankly, by my being there.”
“You can be seen as somebody who’s being used, because, you know, you come from a family that’s very well known,” O’Reilly tells Stone.
“That could be,” Stone says. “I mean, with Ahmadinejad, he’s a little bit misunderstood because there are many factions in that country and he said some sensational things.”
“Look, look,” O’Reilly interrupts. “The one thing he said that’s undeniable was, he said that the Holocaust never happened. And once you get into that kind of fringe, lunatic assessment — all right — your father’s Jewish, I mean, come on.”
Stone, though, says Ahmadinejad’s denial of the Holocaust is also misunderstood. The Iranian president doesn’t mean the Holocaust didn’t happen, he means that it’s irrelevant to present-day politics, according to Stone.
“Why should it influence Israeli policy in regards to the Palestinians, in regards to the Middle East? That’s always been his point on that matter,” Stone says. “There’s no room for Holocaust denial, of course, I would never agree with that. But I just think that it’s simplistic to say that he’s a fanatic.”
O’Reilly asks: “You okay with Iran having a nuclear weapon?”
“I am, because it’s a Republic and there are factions. And it’s very much like this country. There’s a lot of unrest.”
Stone also predicted that an Occupy Tehran movement akin to Occupy Wall Street is on its way, and he suggested that President Jimmy Carter be enlisted to help solve problems in the Middle East, a thought that made O’Reilly chuckle. [THR]
So basically, O’Reilly painted Stone with the usual, mostly-meaningless conservative scare-words brush – “holocaust denier!” “enemy of ‘murica!” – and Stone responded by saying Ahmadinejad is misunderstood and that Iran needs an Occupy movement. MUST. REMOVE. PALM. FROM FACE. Hey, dummy. Aren’t you making a documentary about Iran? They already had an Occupy movement. It was in 2009, and it wasn’t called “occupy”, because it actually had specific criticisms and aims. It sort of fizzled out around the time the government there started shooting everyone in the face. Christ. I wish both these asswipes would give up breathing for Lent. I want to take the “America is always right crowd,” mix them with the “America is always wrong” crowd, puree them into a fine paste, and fire them into the sun while I hum the Battle Hymn of the Republic and jack off to European erotica.
In case you don’t want to watch the whole video, here’s the abbreviated version: