OUTSPOKEN antiwar celebs have been curiously quiet since the swift success of Operation Iraqi Freedom. But it looks like they're just biding their time for another major outburst.
Martin Sheen, Sean Penn, Janeane Garofalo, the Dixie Chicks, Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon and others kicked up a huge fuss over the Iraqi invasion. They've all gone eerily silent. But "M*A*S*H*" star Mike Farrell, organizer of Artists United to Win Without War, says no one's hiding in shame.
In fact, he claims the "huge coalition" of peace-loving Hollywood types is gearing up for another battle over the administration of post-war Iraq and future "pre-emptive" strikes in other countries.
"What's the point of me saying anything right now, while they're in the end zone doing the dance and spiking the football?" Farrell told Reuters on Sunday. "They [White House officials and war supporters] are going to do the thing they are going to do, but we'll be heard from when it's appropriate and in the manner that is appropriate."
Garofalo, who made the talk show rounds with her anti-President Bush views before the war started, has lately refused most interview requests. But last week she claimed her unpopular stance has actually helped her career.
"Before this I was a moderately well-known character actress," she told the Washington Post. "Now, I'm almost famous."
A rep for Penn, who went on an embarrassingly ill-advised "fact-finding mission" to Iraq, said he isn't granting interviews. Sheen's publicist said the star, who riled his bosses at "The West Wing" with un-American utterings, is "not talking to anybody right now."
But Farrell notes: "The Dixie Chicks are back on the air, and their record is number one again. Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon are not going to stop making movies for a long time. Janeane Garofalo has a [TV] pilot going forward. These ugly-mouthed people [e.g., radio stations that yanked the Dixie Chicks] like to think they are more powerful than they are."
UCLA film and TV producers-program founder Prof. Howard Suber agrees we haven't heard the last of the Hollywood peace crowd. "To suggest they've been muzzled I think is bull," he says. "They've just got nothing to say. Once the deed is done there's nothing to say until the next time."
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