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Here's a treat for you and the peanut gallery, such as it is, still left in this thread. From CNSnews.com:

'Human Shields' Protect Reporters from Pacifist Actor
By Jeff Johnson
CNSNews.com Congressional Bureau Chief
April 16, 2003

Capitol Hill (CNSNews.com) - "We're here to protect you," members of the Washington, D.C. chapter of the Free Republic told reporters gathered to cover an anti-war speech by self-proclaimed pacifist and actor Tim Robbins.

"We're here to demonstrate against Tim Robbins and act as human shields for reporters in case they ask a question that Tim Robbins doesn't like and he threatens to harm them like he did Lloyd Grove of the Washington Post ," said Kristinn Taylor, co-leader of the group.

Grove wrote about Robbins' "life-partner," Susan Sarandon or, more accurately, about the fact that Sarandon's 79-year-old mother, Lenora Tomalin, is a die-hard conservative Republican who supports the war in Iraq and President Bush. During the interview, Tomalin volunteered that she believed Sarandon and Robbins had "politically brainwashed" their son, Jack Henry.

That did not sit well with Robbins.

"My 13-year-old boy, who has done nothing to anybody, has been embarrassed and humiliated by a sadistic creep who writes, or rather, scratches, his column with his fingers in the dirt," Robbins said Tuesday.

Grove reported on March 25 that he had a post-Tomalin encounter with Robbins, at a party following the Academy Awards.

"As for Robbins, we said hello to him in a crush of partygoers that included his life partner, Susan Sarandon," wrote Grove, who refers to himself in the plural in his column.

After a brief but apparently pleasant conversation, Robbins apparently recognized Grove as the author of the Tomalin report.

"You wanted to be divisive and you caused trouble in my family," Grove quoted Robbins as saying. "If you ever write about my family again, I will [expletive deleted] find you and [expletive deleted] hurt you."

Robbins did not deny the threat when asked about it Tuesday at the National Press Club.

"I'd rather not talk about the specifics of it," he said. "When someone introduces something nasty you try to just not talk about it anymore."

The actor-activist attempted to portray Grove's quoting of Sarandon's mother as an attack on his son.

"I personally think that we should lay off the children," he said. "It's not their choice that their parents are saying what they are saying. They shouldn't be vilified in the press. It's just nasty, it's not nice."

D.C. Free Republic's Taylor noted that the comment involved Sarandon's mother giving a negative assessment of the couple's parenting, not Grove "vilifying" Robbins' son.

Taylor told CNSNews.com that his group hoped their services as human shields for reporters would not be seriously needed. But they wanted to point out, "the hypocrisy of the Hollywood elite who are on the one hand demonstrating for peace yet they have a lot of violence in their hearts, as evidenced by Tim Robbins."

Robbins' complaints about an alleged backlash against those who opposed the war also seemed hypocritical to Taylor.

"People like Susan Sarandon were supporters of and participants in the 'Stop Dr. Laura' campaign to get Dr. Laura's [Schlessinger] TV show taken off the air when Paramount was syndicating it," Taylor said. "Fair play for all?"

Given the opportunity to deliver a message to Robbins, Taylor joked that he would say simply, "Please don't hit me."

Several questions were submitted by reporters to the host of the event, who read heavily edited versions of the questions to Robbins. The actor responded to each of the edited questions verbally, without any actual or threatened physical violence.