Hollywood vs. Obama
<p>The huge groundswell of opposition to SOPA and PIPA is having some interesting ripple effects.  Barack Obama announced he would veto these bills if they came to his desk, and now it seems that <a href="http://www.deadline.com/2012/01/exclusive-hollywood-moguls-stopping-obama-donations-because-of-administrations-piracy-stand/">Hollywood is pissed off</a> over this.</p>
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<p>In the words of one unnamed studio chief, “God knows how much money we’ve given to Obama and the Democrats and yet they’re not supporting our interests&#8221;. Other unnamed Hollywood bigwigs speak darkly of turning off the campaign-donations tap in this presidential cycle.</p>
<p>From a certain deeply cynical perspective the moguls&#8217; outrage is sort of understandable. How <em>dare</em> Obama curry favor with Silicon Valley and the Wikipedians when he should have stayed bought?  It&#8217;s not as though Obama actually cares about the &#8220;civil liberties&#8221; those damned anti-copyright anarchists are screaming about &#8211; anyone suffering from that delusion has forgotten that he signed the NDAA. So forget &#8220;principle&#8221;; from the moguls&#8217; point of view this is a pure betrayal of the basest kind. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, we can almost hear the psephological wheels clicking at Obama campaign headquarters.  With his approval rating underwater and the economy showing no sign of climbing out of the shitter before November, The Won&#8217;s odds presently look pretty poor even against the sorriest specimen in the Republican-candidate clown show. Obama needs the &#8220;youth vote&#8221; desperately; his strategists must figure they can sacrifice Hollywood&#8217;s money to shore it up and still come out ahead.</p>
<p>All this puts me in mind of a famous if apocryphal line by Henry Kissinger about the Iraq-Iran war back in the 1980s. I want to see both sides lose!  The more damage Obama does the Hollywood moguls, and vice-versa, the happier I&#8217;ll be.</p>
