Ben Affleck has figured out how to get the press to ignore him.
Ben Affleck engages in attack on Dubya
“The Bush administration has continued to push a dangerous right-wing agenda which has included increasing encroachments on civil liberties, particularly with the questionable and aggressive use of the Patriot Act,” Affleck fumed on Tuesday night when he accepted a Spirit of Liberty award from the People for the American Way, a liberal political action group, in L.A.
Affleck, who came with Jennifer Lopez, was honored for his work on behalf of children’s rights and voter registration.
“I accept [the award] in the hope that the absurd amount of publicity I received lately – which, as far as I can tell, is chiefly because I have a pretty fiancée – might be directed at something more significant.”
Affleck, who wrote his own speech, jokingly decried “the dawn of the Schwarzenegger era in American politics,” comparing it with “the fall of the Roman Empire.”
The actor added that he hates the Republican tax cut. Even if “I save a million bucks,” he joked, “the deficit grows like [conservative commentator and gambler] William Bennett’s credit line on a one-armed-bandit bender at Bally’s.”