Tell ‘em Tim
Tim Robbins delivers keynote at NAB
In a keynote speech laced with wry irony and winking sarcasm, Tim Robbins managed to slap back at his right-wing critics, recount an entertaining history of radio and TV and urge broadcasters to “appeal to our better natures,” saying news directors and producers have a responsibility to “the health of the nation.”
Robbins also denounced television’s “pornographic obsession with celebrity culture” and warned that meaningful civil discourse is being threatened by it.
He launched into an apology to conservative talkers Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly “and Laura whatshername,” noting that all had labeled him traitorous or unpatriotic for having called for more time to be given to U.N. weapons inspectors before deploying military force against Iraq.
“They said I was a dupe of left-wing appeasement … and how right they were,” Robbins quipped. “Had I known then of all the smiling faces” that now populate Iraq, “the wildfire of democracy that is spreading throughout the Middle East,” he would have not spoken as he did, he said.
He added that he can see now that his words were indeed “traitorous, unfounded and irresponsible, so I apologize to the talkradio geniuses.”</em>
Ha.
To quote Nick Lowe:
I made an American squirm
And it feel so right
On the screen was the musical war
Deep deep into the night</em>
