Slashing at Hollywood: East’s Snobbery Turns Ugly : Media: Washington and Hollywood have long had a symbiotic relationship. But the press is bashing Clinton about it with a ferocious intensity.

One year after Dan Quayle accused a “Hollywood elite” of damaging American values, several pillars of American journalism appear to have taken up the attack. They have been slashing at some of President Bill Clinton’s supporters in the entertainment business and lambasting the new Administration for welcoming them to Washington.

Two weeks ago, the New York Times ran a front-page story, “Washington Is Star Struck as Hollywood Gets Serious,” in which Leon Weiseltier, a New Republic editor, said, “The idea that these insulated and bubble-headed people should help make policy is ridiculous.”

A Wall Street Journal front-page article described entertainment people en route to Washington as “a flying wedge of glamorous nitwits.” In the ugliest attack, Jonathan Yardley, in the Washington Post, bizarrely misinterpreted a Barbra Streisand remark, “Arthur Schlesinger turned me onto the Economist.” Yardley wrote three paragraphs claiming Streisand is erotically aroused by the British political journal. Yardley also referred to entertainment business executives and performers as “airheads.” (A shorter version of this article ran in The Times.)

These journalists probably have little in common with cultural conservatives like Quayle, Patrick J. Buchanan and Pat Robertson. But they are, nonetheless, continuing the conservatives’ lines of argument and giving strength to right-wing politics. Meanwhile, the real “news” in all this coverage is non-existent.

Woody Allen captured the cultural disdain that many East Coast intellectuals have for Hollywood in his movie, “Annie Hall.” Allen dismissed Los Angeles as a place whose “only cultural advantage is being able to turn right on a red light.” The movie business had enough of a sense of humor about itself to reward him with an Oscar. But this “Annie Hall” attitude about Los Angeles has now mutated into something ugly.

It’s hard to imagine eminent journalists speaking about any other group in society so derisively. There is a sexist element in the criticism as well: Would an important male star ever be the focus of the condescending tone directed at Streisand and other actresses? Something extremely odd is going on.

The fact is that the central premise of the anti-Hollywood stories is false. No one from Hollywood is helping to formulate policy--not actors, not writers, not business leaders. The recent visits of people from the entertainment industry to the nation’s capital are consistent with similar visits by Hollywood figures in previous administrations.

They fall into three categories. One is a reward for support in the recent election--a visit to the White House and to spend some time shaking the hand of the new President. This is what Ronald Reagan and George Bush did for an endless parade of Fortune 500 executives and other political supporters, who visited the White House for photo-ops and views of the Lincoln bedroom.

As a similar sort of reward, Bush, early in his Administration, attended the premiere of “My Stepmother Is an Alien.” The film’s producer, Jerry Weintraub, is an old Bush friend who had done major fund raising during the campaign. Reagan made an elaborate videotape for the 50th wedding anniversary of MCA Chairman Lew R. Wasserman and his wife, Edie, to thank them for years of support.

Second, some writers and executives from Hollywood have been consulted about how best to talk to the public about such programs as National Service and Universal Health Care. No one from the White House is asking their opinion about the relative merits of managed care vs. a single payer. But people in the entertainment business do have highly developed skills in communicating complicated ideas to a mass audience. Reagan, the “Great Communicator,” relied heavily on just such advise from people from Hollywood.

Reagan was continuing a long tradition. President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked director Frank Capra and assembled Hollywood talent to explain the purpose of World War II to the troops with a series of movies. There has not been a single Administration that has not used Hollywood for its communication skills on certain issues. Bush was undoubtedly thinking along these lines when he appointed Arnold Schwarzenegger head of his Council of Physical Fitness.

Third, the White House has long been a place for celebrating accomplishment from all walks of life. For decades, White House dinners included entertainment celebrities as well as leading scientists, academics, authors and, most frequently, business leaders. Roosevelt frequently hosted Will Rogers. President Richard Nixon gave Elvis Presley an honorary badge as a drug-enforcement agent and famously hugged Sammy Davis Jr. Reagan had Michael Jackson and Bubbles, his chimpanzee, on the White House lawn. The press never suggested that Elvis was shaping Nixon’s drug policy. Yet Michael Douglas’ visit to the White House Correspondents Dinner (as the guest of a media organization), was cited as evidence, in the New York Times, that “Washington”--meaning the Clinton Administration--is “star-struck.”

What accounts for this double standard? It’s impossible to ignore that these criticisms are aimed at Democratic celebrities visiting a Democratic President, and for 12 years Republicans doing the same thing were ignored. There may also be a certain amount of envy that every dinner the President has with someone from Hollywood is one fewer with Washington’s own media elite. For every politician who dreams of being Kennedy, there is a journalist who dreams of being his confidant--as Benjamin C. Bradlee was with Kennedy. At a time when the Clinton Administration is trying to circumvent the national media by dealing with local news outlets, Hollywood’s perceived access must be particularly galling.

In addition, the cultural reality is that a picture of Streisand is more interesting to the public than a picture of, say, the CEO of an oil company visiting senators who oppose Clinton’s energy tax. However, the intensity of the coverage of Clinton’s Hollywood supporters has had a cumulative effect that could transcend normal media treatment of celebrities.

The political reality is that much of entertainment business is a part of the coalition that raises money and helps elect Democrats. To the extent that false accusations of “policy influence” by celebrities are given credence, Democrats may feel forced not to accept such support--which would be a tremendous benefit to Republicans and Ross Perot.

Meanwhile, the cultural right wing bashes Hollywood relentlessly, now substituting accusations of moral bankruptcy for the outdated accusations of sympathy for communism. There are two monthly right-wing newsletters devoted to attacking the entertainment business.

Entertainers are as diverse a community as any other, and their motives for political or public service range from selflessness to vanity--usually some combination of the two. To the extent that they are subjected to name-calling and embarrassment in the media, undoubtedly many celebrities will choose to be less involved on social and political matters. Perhaps this is what some of the Hollywood-bashing columnists would like. But the political ill winds unleashed by bashing the “Hollywood elite” could ultimately turn against the very “media elite” now so enjoying their smug superiority.