Black Eyed Peas singer Will.i.am produced the track “Yes We Can” for Obama in 2008.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- A Los Angeles rally and two dinners for Obama offered out
- Matt Damon’s “a little bummed out” by Obama
- Michael Moore needs Obama to “start listening to himself”
- Oprah Winfrey says Obama needed to take care of “a learning curve”
Los Angeles (NCS) — While some Hollywood A-listers who supported the Obama marketing campaign in 2008 have expressed disappointment together with his presidency in latest months, tickets for three Obama fundraisers in Los Angeles Thursday offered rapidly, organizers mentioned.
Celebrity frustrations vented in interviews have included criticism of President Obama’s dealing with of the battle in Afghanistan, price range cuts, the Gulf oil catastrophe, Guantanamo detainees and homosexual rights.
“They are stopping short of saying ‘I’m not going to vote for him,'” Variety Deputy Editor Ted Johnson mentioned in a NCS interview this month. “They still see Obama as kind of the defense against a Republican party that has gone even further to the right.”
Several thousand folks have paid as much as $2,500 to attend an Obama marketing campaign rally on the Sony Pictures lot, the place actor-comedian Jamie Foxx and singer Jason Mraz will entertain.
When the 60 tickets for a dinner with President Obama on the Sony Pictures lot offered out at $35,800 every, a second dinner was added at a Westwood restaurant.
Actor Matt Damon, who campaigned arduous for Barack Obama three years in the past, advised NCS’s Piers Morgan final month that he was “just a little bummed out” by President Obama’s lack of success in delivering the change he promised.
Damon criticized Obama for not as soon as utilizing the phrase “poverty” on this 12 months’s state of the union deal with whereas “you got millions of people languishing in it.”
“I appreciate that he is a deep thinker,” Damon mentioned. “I do appreciate that about him. He’s a brilliant guy, but I definitely wanted more.”
Documentary filmmaker Michael Moore, on HLN’s “The Joy Behar Show” in April, mentioned whereas Obama “is a man with a good heart,” he needs “he’d start listening to himself.”
Moore expressed frustration that Obama reversed his promise to shut the Guantanamo jail.
“And I think people thought that things were going to move faster,” Moore mentioned. “You know, they get a health care bill passed. They tell everybody now we have universal health care and then people go to get help and they find out oh, there`s no help, not until 2014.”
Actor-director Robert Redford, who spends a lot of his time on environmental causes, criticized the Obama administration final summer season for being “caught off guard” by the Gulf oil catastrophe.
Black Eyed Peas singer Will.I.Am, who produced the track “Yes We Can” in tribute to Obama in 2008, advised the New York Times in January that whereas he didn’t really feel disillusioned, “I feel like, Argggh! Speak louder! I feel like, Do something!”
Wil.I.Am additionally posted a message on his Twitter account final month criticizing the U.S. involvement in Libya.
Actress-singer Barbra Streisand, in a December 2010 interview with NCS’s Larry King, mentioned she was “a little” disillusioned that President Obama did not use his government energy to finish the army’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” coverage. While Streisand referred to as Obama “very smart,” she blamed Democrats within the final election “for not getting their message across, not communicating all that they’ve done that’s good.”
Talk present host Oprah Winfrey, whose endorsement of Obama in 2008 was seen as a serious increase, advised Piers Morgan in January that Obama has not been a disappointment to her.
“I really do not, because I believe that I understand the heart of him,” Winfrey mentioned. “And I understand that when he took this role on, he took it on to really bring a sense of betterment to the United States of America and the people of this country.”
Obama needed to take care of “a learning curve,” she mentioned.
Actress Reese Witherspoon advised NCS in an interview this month that Obama’s “doing a great job.”
“I can’t imagine the difficulty of being a president in this day and age where our country is going through so much,” Witherspoon mentioned.
Comedic actress Sarah Silverman provided a powerful protection for Obama earlier this month when Piers Morgan requested if she was disillusioned with the Obama presidency.
“Let’s not forget that he inherited” a multitude, Silverman mentioned, utilizing a a number of expletive-filled description for it. “Can we remember that for two seconds? And I’m enjoying the blind faith that so many people enjoyed eight years prior. You know? I think I have the right to do that. And I think he’s a good man.”
NCS’s Brooke Anderson contributed to this report.