Dole’s Plaint Is Old Stuff in Hollywood : Henchman Bill Bennett attacks industry ‘leftists’ but ignores specimens like G. Gordon Liddy.

It’s an old political trick that the best defense is a good offense, and that’s what the conservative brouhaha over “Hollywood violence” is all about.

Recently, the right-wing was confronted with a huge image problem. The murders at abortion clinics, the bombing in Oklahoma City, the ranting of militias and the advice of talk-show host G. Gordon Liddy on the proper way to kill federal agents were all the work of people claiming to be conservatives.

Instead of cleaning their own house of fringe elements like Liddy, ending their love affair with guns and putting substantial distance between right-wing rhetoric and extremist madness, the right shifted focus to the ever-handy target of Hollywood. As a result, a complex issue that is real and has long been with us--violence as an entertainment commodity--was thrust into the midst of campaign debate.

Violence in movies and music lyrics is neither new nor partisan; it is fostered as much by Republicans in the industry like Rupert Murdoch as it is by Democrats, and it has been condemned by Democrats and Republicans alike. Long before William Bennett and Sen. Bob Dole, there were Tipper Gore and Sen. Paul Simon. What is new is the attempt to turn legitimate concern over the ugliness in mass culture into a partisan political issue.

That’s what happened when Dole belatedly discovered this issue in the context of a presidential campaign. And it was raised to witch-hunt level the other night on the “Charlie Rose” show when Bennett, the conservative leader on this issue, lashed out at “the Hollywood left.” Was he talking about Barbra Streisand, the most prominent liberal in Hollywood, whose movies and records are certainly wholesome compared with the works of Republicans like Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger?

No, the two “leftists” he named were people whose only crime was daring to publicly disagree with Bennett on the proper limits to freedom of expression. Asked what he meant by the left, Bennett responded; “Well, the Hollywood left. I was on [“Face the Nation”] with Mr. [James] Woods . . . and he said it’s all about censorship and the Constitution.” But actor James Woods is, to say the least, fiercely independent in his political views. As he told me, “I like to be on the other side of the pendulum, trying to pull it back toward the center.”

Bennett added, “We have also heard from the executives of Time Warner, some of whom have been involved in leftist politics for a long time . . . .” Asked whom he was talking about, Bennett said, “Well, Mr. [Danny] Goldberg is an old ACLU guy . . . It’s pretty left.”

Anyone familiar with the sad financial condition of the ACLU knows that it is constantly scraping for support precisely because many people on the left disagree with its purist defense of free speech, extending as it has to Nazis in Skokie, Ill., and anti-abortion protesters near clinics.

In his day job, Goldberg is the head of Warner Brothers Records, one of four record companies owned by Time Warner, and has never been associated with the music that offends Bennett. But he became a target of Bennett’s wrath because he is also president of the ACLU Foundation and espouses a far-reaching commitment to free speech--for rappers as well as right-wing talk show hosts like Liddy. Can Bennett claim the same consistency?

I called Bennett to ask if his targeting was not selective and wondered why I could find no public reference to his having shamed Liddy’s sponsors or the stations that carry his message, the way he did Time Warner. Although he had no record of such a statement, I accept his word that he has criticized Liddy and that reporters failed to print his remarks. Even then, he waffled, saying: “I think it’s a little more problematic, not that what he [Liddy] is recommending is fine, but the context here is political debate . . . . We say let it rip when we are talking about politics. It is a little different when we are talking about the entertainment business.”

That chilling distinction on the limits to free speech is one not recognized by the First Amendment. Indeed, Liddy’s discourse on the most effective way to kill a federal law enforcement officer is more akin to yelling “fire” in a theater than similar language from a gangsta rapper, because this particular ex-felon’s speech has been dignified with the sobriquet of “political.”

It is Liddy who is being honored later this month at the convention of mostly conservative talk show hosts who form the base of the conservative “revolution,” and it is Liddy who has been welcome at Republican gatherings. If Bennett is to point the finger of shame at Time Warner, he must also aim at targets closer to home.