Clooney Cross with Crony Corporatist Car

Bad news at the intersection of Hollywood and Obama: George Clooney is not happy with Tesla, Reuters reports:

Tesla Motors Inc got more bad news this week following the third fire in its Model S electric sedan as actor George Clooney complained about being stuck on the side of the road in the Roadster sports car he used to own.

Clooney, currently starring in the movie “Gravity”, was asked by Esquire magazine in an interview that was posted online on Monday whether he owned a Tesla car.

“I had a Tesla,” Clooney told the magazine. “I was one of the first cats with a Tesla. I think I was, like, No. 5 on the list. But I’m telling you, I’ve been on the side of the road a while in that thing, and I said to them, ‘Look, guys, why am I always stuck on the side of the f***ing road? Make it work, one way or another.’ ”

Tesla discontinued the Roadster and currently only sells the Model S sedan. Clooney last year auctioned off his Roadster for charity for $99,000, according to media reports.

Last week, Tesla reported the third fire in the car in Tennessee. Police reports said the vehicle had run over a tow hitch that punctured the armor plating that protects the battery pack of lithium-ion cells. Despite no injuries in any of the accidents, the headlines about the fires have been unwelcome news for a company whose stock had risen sixfold in the first nine months of the year before the first fire occurred on October 1.

Do we know what Clooney is driving today? I hope it’s not gasoline-powered after this ’70s-style outburst from the self-admitted “old-time liberal” actor in 2011:

George Clooney has begun a publicity tour for his new political thriller The Ides of March (which debuts in theaters October 7). John Horn of the Los Angeles Times says the Clooney character has a platform “so uncompromisingly left-leaning it might make Fox News commentators burst into flames.”

Not only that, Clooney’s character proposes the U.S. government ban the internal combustion engine. Clooney says “make it happen.” He actually believes that “these are the kind of leadership things I would love to see.”  Horn explained:

Clooney’s Gov. Mike Morris is poised to take the Democratic nomination with a platform so uncompromisingly left-leaning it might make Fox News commentators burst into flames. He opposes the death penalty, foreign military intervention and even internal combustion engines and supports gay marriage, mandatory national volunteer service and higher taxes for the richest Americans.

….If real-life Democrats end up taking inspiration from the Mike Morris character and his stump speeches, Clooney will hardly be upset. On climate change and oil, for instance, the governor proposes that the United States do away with the internal combustion engine.

“If we’re cut off from oil, we will find a way to power our cars. So say it and make it happen,” Clooney said. “It’s not ridiculous. It is possible. And these are the kind of leadership things I would love to see and could be argued about. People will say, ‘It’s just actors.’ But I truly believe it.”

In response, I inserted the clip from the 1995 Adam Sandler vehicle Billy Madison, in which James Downey’s character says:

Mr. Madison, what you’ve just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

And God have mercy on the motion picture industry, if Clooney really does believe, in his heart of hearts, that America should do away with the internal combustion engine. As I wrote back then, he ought to put his money where his mouth is:

• Never work on a film where the equipment is shipped to the set or the location shoot in a truck with an internal combustion engine.
• Never work on a film with a night shoot where the electricity for the lights come from a generator with an internal combustion engine.
• Demand that your studio avoid sending prints out to theaters where they get deliveries of products such as food and drink concessions via trucks with internal combustion engines.
• Never buy food in a grocery store where the products are delivered via trucks with internal combustion engines.
• If, God forbid, you or a loved one ever require an ambulance for emergency care, vow to turn away any that use an internal combustion engine.
• Vow to never fly in a jet plane again, until airlines stop using tractors with internal combustion engines to shuttle planes around the airport and service hangers.
• And so on.

In other words, there goes the movie business, as we know it. Not to mention life in general as we know it.

But Clooney’s statement this week that Tesla can magically produce electric cars is akin to his statement that Obama can simply ban internal-combustion cars, which is also akin to Obama believing that he can will the insurance industry away. Government is magic, both for its practitioners and its Hollywood fanboys like Clooney.

Oh, and speaking of Tesla, “Corvette Sales soar as Tesla stock price plunges,” the Daily Caller recently reported. Which means that one branch of the combined crony socialist enterprise that is Government Motors is clobbering another. Early in its first term, the Obama administration awarded $465 million of taxpayer funds to Tesla, in addition to awarding $50 billion of taxpayer funds to bailout General Motors.  And note this:

A breakdown of the sales of the new model conducted by Torquenews.com in September foresaw the expected sales surge. Nearly three quarters of ‘Vette buyers are going for the high performance Z51 models.

To further ram home the point that electric cars haven’t caught the public’s imagination, sales of GM’s own plug-in hybrid, The Volt, were down 2.7 percent, selling only 18,783 units in the first ten months of 2013.

Barry will get cracking on that internal combustion ban as soon as he’s done charting the fallout from banning private health insurance, I’m sure.

Or if Democrats recapture the House and hold the Senate in 2014. Whichever comes first.

Update: Oh, and speaking of Clooney and one of his more infamous roles, “There wasn’t a single nipple on this fricking suit!’ Ben Affleck’s Batman has a brand new costume that promises to supersede its predecessors,” the London Daily Mail claims.