Tim Robbins showed up in Madrid to promote a movie, and of course ran his mouth to the press. According to La Vanguardia, in what seems like an extremely lousy translation, Robbins said,

"In the United States, we should be wondering, knowing everything the government is involved in, aren't they killing us, killing our souls? We know there is torture and we don't do anything."

Well, Tim, actually, we know they aren't torturing people simply because there are so many people watching what the Americans are doing with the nest of terrorists locked up at Guantanamo. And every time we do catch a unit gone bad torturing people, as at Abu Ghraib, those guilty are punished and their crimes are made public.

He added,

"Bush is not only my devil. I used to belong to a minority, but since November, when it was overwhelmingly voted to stop the war in Iraq, we are a majority. However, Bush's response is something like a commander who talks with God, with absolute disdain for what the American people is trying to tell him."

1) Bush is the devil? 2) The November election was rather close, if we're comparing Republicans and Democrats. 3) The November election was not a referendum on the Iraq war. 4) This wacky idea that people have around here that Bush is some kind of simple-minded fundamentalist who hallucinates that God speaks to him is not something the Spanish invented out of thin air, it's something our own illustrated and enlightened has been reiterating to them. Bush is a Methodist, for God's sake. There's nothing more middle-of-the-road and respectable than a Methodist.

Robbins added that he felt "used" because Madrid mayor Ruiz-Gallardon--whose government is subsidizing the progressive film festival at which Robbins's film is being shown to the tune of a million euros--showed up to shake his hand and get in the photos. Tim snitted, "I didn't come here to pose in photos with right-wing politicians." Seems to me Ruiz-Gallardon is the mayor and has the right, as the elected representative of the citizens, to show up at a film festival those citizens are paying for and shake hands with anyone he wants to.

What I don't understand is why Ruiz-Gallardon would want to shake hands with an asshole like Tim Robbins.