More on Hollywood types who get it

I finally got around to turning to TiVo and watching Monday’s Jay Leno. Jay had the actor James Woods as his first guest. I’ve never thought much about James Woods, to be honest. I knew I’ve seen him in movies but, without help from IMDB, I had no idea which ones. I certainly came away from the show impressed, though, and I’m disappointed that I can’t find on YouTube a clip of his Leno appearance.  It turns out that, a couple of weeks before 9/11, Woods was on a flight from Boston where he saw two of the 9/11 terrorists doing a trial run. He reported them to a flight attendant and, afterwards, to the FBI. Sadly, his efforts ultimately made no difference.

Woods also shared two other interesting things. First, he believes that the President’s decision immediately to ground planes on 9/11 saved even more lives. He avers that an FBI agent let drop that, after 9/11, the airlines found other box cutters taped to the bottom of airplane seats. If that is true, and if those flights had become airborne, there’s no telling what would have happened.

The last thing Woods said, which you and I know, but which I doubt has ever been voiced before on Leno, is that this is a war to the death, solely for the purpose of death. Woods pointed out to an utterly silent audience that the enemy has no stated goal whatsoever, such as the territorial demands or fealty demands usually associated with warfare. Instead, Woods said, their sole goal is to cause us as much pain and suffering as possible.

Woods insight into these matters may not be so peculiar given his history, and is almost certainly the subject of derision in his Hollywood circles.  It turns out that Woods’ father was in military intelligence, and that Woods majored in Political Science at MIT (which he attended on a scholarship, although he dropped out right before graduating).  Woods is also the ultimate un-liberal, which must make him quite a sight on the Hollywood circuit.  Here are just a few of the things he’s said, going all the way back to the early 1990s:

“Do you think I want to be the one lone voice against the Hollywood liberal establishment? It’s not going to do me any good.”

“I love George Bush right now – and I always have! I’m the only guy in L.A. who voted for him.” (January 2002)

“Scratch a liberal and you’ll find a fascist … I’m not joking. You look at what’s happening in this country now. Catharine MacKinnon thinks that we should now limit free speech, anything that offends a woman should now no longer be allowed – no reasonable man or woman in this country would subscribe to that, it’s just insanity.” (1994)

“But, you know, feminists have just destroyed the world as we, know it. I haven’t met a woman lately, and I’m talking about women who work and have a high position, who doesn’t agree with that. It has just destroyed relationships between men and women. Men and women are very wary of each other now. I listen to these feminists rave about, ‘How dare they attack ‘Bill Clinton’ for having a little consensual sex act’, but went nuts because Clarence Thomas allegedly made a joke about a Coke can. And the other guy is humiliating his wife and getting oral sex while he’s talking about Bosnia to a congressman. Hello? Barbara Boxer is, you know, the most worthless, hypocritical ‘feminist’ loser on the face of the earth …. I just loathe with every fiber of my being, liars. My second ex-wife was a liar. And Nixon was a liar. And this Clinton is a liar. I have no respect for him no matter what in the world he ever does.”