The Volunteerism Scandals Hollywood Won’t Be Broadcasting

by Michelle Malkin at Townhall.com

Hollywood hearts Obama. Obama hearts government-directed national service. That is why you won’t be able to change the TV channel all week without getting lectured about the need to get off the couch and Do Something. (After your favorite shows are over, of course.) Creeped out? You should be.

The entertainment industry, inspired by Obama’s $6 billion expansion of government volunteerism spending, is coordinating plot lines and ads to push public service. “The message will be nearly ubiquitous,” reports the Los Angeles Times, “starting in the morning with programs such as ‘Today’ and ‘The View,’ and then echoed on soap operas, prime-time series and late-night shows.” First lady Michelle Obama, a relentless AmeriCorps promoter who publicly extolled the Tinseltown initiative last month, will cap off the week with an appearance on “The Jay Leno Show” on Friday.

But don’t expect Leno to ask Mrs. Obama about her reported meddling in personnel decisions at the scandal-plagued AmeriCorps. Or about the program’s long history as a government boondoggle stuffed with make-work jobs, permanent bureaucracies, left-wing slush funds and partisan lobbyists. More on that in a moment.

Spearheaded by a nonprofit called the Entertainment Industry Foundation (EIF), organizers deny any partisan or political motivation. But editor John Nolte published an internal memo from EIF titled “Answering the Call,” which describes the entire multiyear campaign as a direct response to President Obama’s call “for a new era of responsibility.” The massive leftward tilt in Hollywood donations to Democratic campaign coffers speaks for itself. As do the celebrity vows of volunteer-mongers like Demi Moore, who pledged in a recent national service PSA not to be a servant to her fellow citizens or her country, but “a servant to Barack Obama.”

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