what are the dems giving their celebrity shills these days--a list of talking points and a vial of crack?
_______ Rob Reiner likens Gore to Nixon, Johnson
CLEVELAND (Reuters) - Actor/director Rob Reiner, while campaigning with Democrat Al Gore Sunday, jokingly suggested that Republicans define ``diversity'' as having two people on the same ticket from ``two different oil companies.''
The crack about Republican presidential nominee George W. Bush and his running mate Dick Cheney drew laughter while Reiner and Gore headed a health care forum at a Cleveland hospital.
But Reiner later raised eyebrows and prompted more chuckles when he likened Gore to former Presidents Richard Nixon and Lyndon Johnson.
``There have been three guys that have as qualified as this man (Gore) to be president of the United States in our lifetime,'' Reiner said.
``One of them was Richard Nixon, whatever you want to think about Richard,'' with the others being Johnson and Gore himself, Reiner said.
When a reporter noted Nixon led the nation into the Watergate political scandal and Johnson led the nation during Vietnam, Reiner became defensive.
He said Gore would ``lead us through prosperity and is going to take this country in the direction that it needs to go.''
Reiner disclosed that actor-producer-director Spike Jonze, with the Democratic National Committee helping with the tab, recently put together film footage of Gore on the campaign trail.
``You have to see it,'' Reiner gushed.
Gore campaign aides said no decision had been made on whether it would be shown at the convention, which already intends to air other film about the vice president.
In speaking to the health forum at Cleveland's Rainbow Babies & Children's Hospital, Reiner tweaked the Republicans for calling themselves ``the party of diversity.''
``How did they figure that unless they define diversity as two guys at the head of the ticket from two different oil companies,'' he said.
Reiner said Democrats had real diversity at the top of its ticket with Gore and Sen. Joseph Lieberman, a team he described as ``a southern Baptist and a Northeast Jewish person.''
Reuters/Variety