Whaddya mean, "Hollywood Values"?!

There are some interesting points in this LATimes article (Clooney steps cautiously into Obama's camp)--and a reference to the Ford/Corker Race!!, but I'm amused at the reporter's premise: the phrase "Hollywood Values" is ludicrous, mean-spirited, just-plain-false

"George Clooney can't decide what role he'd like to play.

This has nothing to do with his flourishing movie career and everything to do with the 2008 presidential campaign, where the involvement of even a widely admired star can be the subject of a serious dilemma.

On the one hand, the actor said in an interview, he would love to throw himself into campaigning for his friend, Sen. Barack Obama, a politician he compares to President Kennedy.

But Clooney is too shrewd a political observer to discount the negative effect celebrity can have on a campaign, especially in a red state. (Look what happened last year when industry favorite Rep. Harold Ford Jr. ran for the Senate in 2006. The Tennessee Democrat's foes called him 'Fancy Ford' and portrayed him as a habitué of Hollywood's decadent soirees. It might have been what cost him the election in a close race.)

At the moment Clooney is playing it close to the vest, waiting to see if he can play a part without become a distracting sideshow. His quandary is a measure of Hollywood's growing political sophistication; celebs are beginning to understand that their support can be a double-edged sword."