Important Hollywood Celebrities Saying Important Hollywood Things.

Susan Sarandon Calls the Pope a Nazi at the Hamptons Film Festival

Sarandon was interviewed by Bob Balaban at the Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor on Saturday. She said she sent the pope a copy of the anti death penalty book, Dead Man Walking, authored by Sister Helen Prejean. Sarandon starred in the 1995 big-screen adaptation.

"The last one," she said, "not this Nazi one we have now."

Balaban tried to dance around the comment, but Sarandon just made it again, Newsday reports. The audience also laughed.

Here's another take, which points out how Sarandon was fortunate to make her comment in the progressive bastion of the Hamptons:

Susan Sarandon dropped a zinger or two when she appeared at the Bay Street Theatre Saturday for an interview with fellow actor Bob Balaban. The outspokenly political actress talked about Occupy Wall Street, recalled her run-ins with the NYPD over the Amadou Diallo case and called the current pope a "Nazi."


That last comment was somewhat offhanded. She was discussing her 1995 film "Dead Man Walking," based on the anti-death-penalty book by Sister Helen Prejean, a copy of which she sent to the pope.

"The last one," she said, "not this Nazi one we have now." Balaban gently tut-tutted, but Sarandon only repeated her remark.

Of all the places on largely Catholic Long Island, perhaps only in the Hamptons could Sarandon get a laugh with such a comment. She may have only used "Nazi" to mean "dictatorial" or "cold," but it's a dangerous word for public figures to throw around. In Cannes, after the director Lars von Trier randomly and jokingly called himself a Nazi, the French festival banned him and demanded an apology. He has since stopped talking to the media.

But don't forget that anywhere else, and unless it's said by a progressive, "Hitler talk is Hate Speech."  According to this editorial at Newsday:

Hank Williams Jr., the legendary country star, lost his gig with Monday Night Football and is being slammed in the media after he seemed to compare President Barack Obama to Adolf Hitler on a Fox News program Monday.


ESPN is right to can him, and Fox and everyone else are right to criticize him.

Williams said Obama playing golf with House Speaker John Boehner was like Hitler playing golf with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, because the men are so far apart. Apologists will say he didn't imply Obama is a genocidal madman any more than he suggested Boehner is a Jewish world leader.

But Williams is a politically active celebrity, who in 2008, preparing to perform the national anthem at a rally for Sarah Palin, said, Obama's "not too crazy about this song."

He has a history not just of arguing that the president is wrong, but of implying Obama doesn't love the United States. Now Williams has escalated his disdain for Obama to Hitler comparisons. That's poisonous talk, meant to generate more hatred when we have plenty.

Our politics are too polarized, but neither side is populated by Satan, Hitler, Idi Amin or any other mass murderer or demon. Comparing our leaders to such creatures is the opposite of making a point. It's pointlessly destructive, and turns what should be an impassioned debate into a forum for hate.

Note the difference: Sarandon says that Ratzinger was - or is - a Nazi, whereas Williams likened the situation two political opponents playing golf to an absurd situation.  Williams is canned and excoriated by the liberal media; Sarandon gets laughs in the Hamptons.