Actor Robbins slams critics of his opposition to war

Actor Tim Robbins pleaded with listeners at the National Press Club yesterday to "defy the intimidation that is visited upon us daily in the name of national security and warped notions of patriotism" after calling some members of the press "Aussie gossip rags" and "talk-radio patriots."
Mr. Robbins took special aim at the National Baseball Hall of Fame, whose president canceled his appearance at an April 26 anniversary fete in Cooperstown, N.Y., for the 1988 movie "Bull Durham" because of antiwar remarks made by him and his live-in partner, actress Susan Sarandon. The Hall received 5,000 e-mail messages from people for and against its decision.
"Major League Baseball disavowed any connection to the actions of the Hall's president," the actor said. "A bully can be stopped. So can a mob."
He thanked various sportswriters for defending him.
"While the journalists' outrage at the cancellation of our appearance in [Hall of Fame headquarters at] Cooperstown is not about my views; it is about my right to express those views. I am extremely grateful that there are those of you out there still with a fierce belief in constitutionally guaranteed rights," Mr. Robbins said.
Speaking alongside Mr. Robbins, Win Without War National Director Tom Edwards called for a "citizens movement" to identify members of Congress who supported the Bush administration's $62 billion appropriation for the Iraq war.
His coalition of 40 groups is debating how to respond to the U.S. victory in Iraq, he said, but it has agreed on a "wave of political activism in every state across this country and in every congressional district."
Mr. Robbins dodged a question about news reports accusing him of physically threatening a Washington Post columnist at a post-Academy Awards party last month. The Post reporter had interviewed Miss Sarandon's mother, a Republican who said the couple had "brainwashed" her grandson about the war.
In his speech yesterday, Mr. Robbins called the writer a "sadistic creep."
"Quite frankly, I don't know the guy and don't want to know him," the actor said. "He has a right [to report] but it irritates me people use that right to pick on 13-year-olds."
Outside the National Press Building, four demonstrators with FreeRepublic.com, a pro-war group, hoisted signs such as: "Iraq has been liberated. Get over it already."
"We're protesting Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon and all the other Hollywood leftists," said Kathy Wood of Burke. "They are all hypocrites."
Mr. Edwards said his coalition wants to "bury the Bush doctrine" of preventive war, "which holds that the United States has the right to attack any country that it claims to be a potential threat — not an actual threat, not an imminent threat, but a potential threat."
Syria, Iran and North Korea, he said, are already in the cross hairs of the Pentagon because the present conflict is a "trial run."

One member of his coalition, the National Council of Churches, has raised $400,000 in the past six months to position itself as a force in the antiwar movement. It has slated an interfaith summit with Muslims, Christians and Jews on postwar issues April 29-30 in Chicago.
"We hope this will begin a major process of engaging the Abrahamic faiths on policy initiatives," General Secretary Bob Edgar said. "The faith communities are getting together to talk. There may or may not be a statement. Only God knows."



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