South Florida Sun-Sentinel Sharon Robb Column: Actor Robbins Endorses Edwards

By Sharon Robb, South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Dec. 13–IOWA CITY, Iowa

Actor and film director Tim Robbins came to Iowa on Wednesday to praise John Edwards — and bury the media.

“I’m not Oprah,” Robbins said, by way of introduction to a packed library auditorium.

Robbins, whose film credits include Mystic River,Bull Durham and The Shawshank Redemption, said Edwards has been overlooked as the media focus on the clash between Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama.

“There is one man who is neck-and-neck with these two in the polls,” he said of Edwards. “And he’s there because he’s listening to people. He’s reaching their lives with his campaign.”

With Bill Clinton campaigning for his wife and Oprah Winfrey campaigning for Obama, celebrity sightings are becoming increasingly common on the campaign trail. Actor Kevin Bacon was to join Edwards later this week. And singer-song writers Jackson Browne and Bonnie Raitt are scheduled to perform at Edwards’ town meetings in New Hampshire next week.

Edwards was on the third day of an eight-day bus tour through Iowa.

The campaign setting was not entirely alien to Robbins. He’s well-known as a liberal activist and even played a candidate running for the Senate in Bob Roberts, a film he also wrote and directed.

Robbins was not kind to the media, accusing it of having skewed priorities.

“What if instead of 24-7 coverage of the most recent pop star’s fall from grace we would see 24-7 reporting of veterans returning from Iraq,” he said. “How do THEY feel about occupying a country and being caught in a crossfire of a civil war?”

Robbins added: “We are owed information, not gossip. And yes, celebrity culture is part of the problem. It’s not what I know, it’s what you know. It’s what the people who don’t have access to microphones in front them know.”

He blamed the media for prematurely narrowing the presidential contest.

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