GLENN: There’s a couple of things that I want to get into today. There is George Clooney now coming out and saying he’s not sure that talking about Darfur is actually — in fact, he thinks it might have hurt the situation in Darfur. He says he’s not sure that his star status has done anything to help at all. And then there’s an article from Angelina Jolie. It’s in the Washington Post. "The request is familiar to American here say, ‘Bring them home.’ But in Iraq where I’ve just met with American and Iraqi leaders, the phrase carries a different meaning. It doesn’t refer to the departure of U.S. troops but to the returns of the millions of innocent Iraqis who have been driven out of their homes and in many cases out of the country. In the six months since my previous visit to Iraq and, you know, with the United Nations high commissioner for refugees, this humanitarian crisis has not improved. However, during last week the United States and the Iraqi government had begun to work together in new and important ways."

She goes on to say that she met with the troops and they don’t want to come home. In fact, let me find this. "During my visit I met with Iraqi prime minister," blah, blah, blah. "My visit left me with even more deeply convinced that we not only have a moral obligation to help these displaced Iraqi families but also a serious long-term national security interest in ending this crisis," blah, blah, blah. "We cannot afford in my view to squander" — listen to this one. "We cannot afford in my view to squander the progress that has made." She wants more money over there, blah, blah, blah. The question — the question whether the surge was working: "I can only state what I witnessed. UN staff and those of nongovernmental organizations seem to feel they have the right set of circumstances to attempt a scale-up of their programs. When I asked the troops if they wanted to go home as soon as possible, they said they miss home but they feel invested in Iraq. They lost so many friends and they want to be a part of the humanitarian progress that they now feel is possible. It seems to me that this is now the moment to address the humanitarian side of the situation."

You’ve got to be kidding me! This — you know what, Stu? I think this kind of answers our Ayn Rand question on Angelina Jolie question from the other day.

STU: Yeah, how do you mean?

GLENN: Well, you know, we were talking, what was it, a couple of days ago that Ayn Rand’s book "Atlas Shrugged" never before made. Ayn Rand didn’t want it made because she said they would butcher it and they had to cut the 40-page monologue at the end and she left it to somebody who promised to protect it and then that person, I think, died and they gave it to somebody else to promise that they would protect it and it would never be made unless it was in its entirety. Well, that person just sold it to Angelina Jolie and they’re going to make "Atlas Shrugged." And you and I were talking about how does Hollywood make Ayn Rand’s book about, really about selfishness, the ultimate in capitalism.

STU: Yeah, personal responsibility and thinking about your — you know, serious.

GLENN: Not thinking about anyone else but yourself but in a positive way in many ways on just saying, what I do if I live my life the right way, it will be good for society. How does Hollywood make that movie, especially with Angelina Jolie? I think this answers the question. I think Angelina is actually open-minded. I think she’s just misguided with the UN. I think, you know, these Hollywood people have been sucked into this global community and — to the UN and they see all these good things. And as George Clooney said in Time magazine, it’s cool to have a UN passport. He doesn’t carry an American passport and neither does she. She carries a UN passport, and I think they are just like, yeah, look at me, I’m cool, I’m part of the UN. Know what I mean? But I think when you read this, she’s open-minded. She’s willing to say — which a lot of people in Hollywood I don’t think are — she’s willing to say, okay, we’ve made progress; I talked to the troops; here’s the truth of what the troops are saying and we have an opportunity here; let’s not squander it.

George Clooney in Time magazine, he’s on the cover, the last movie star. In it he talks about, I think I’ve been misled and I think I may have made the problem worse. He talks about how he was just held at gunpoint over in Darfur by a 14-year-old soldier and he said nothing has changed. He gave a speech to the UN. He said you either fix this problem and give these troops the ability to protect themselves and the people or have the common decency to pull them out. I think he gets it. I think there is a historic opportunity coming our way and it’s not with Washington or anything else. It’s people. I think like the — who is the guy that we had on just the other day from, oh, shoot, what’s his name, from Aspen. He wrote that great column in the Aspen Times. What’s his name?

DAN: Gary Hubbell.

GLENN: Gary Hubbell. Here he is a Democrat and he’s left the party. He listened to this program and when I said you’ve got to get out of these parties, he took it to heart. He left the party and now he’s an independent. I think people are starting to say, wait a minute, maybe We the People is the answer, maybe we are the answer. You know, we have absolutely no chance of this ever happening but yesterday I met with the bookers on our TV show and I said, you’ve got to get a hold of George Clooney and maybe we should get a hold of Angelina Jolie as well. You’ve got to get a hold of George Clooney. I absolutely agree with him on Darfur. I think that we’re going to be held morally responsible for this when we get to the other side. We pass over to the other side, that’s going to be on the checklist: Where were you on Darfur. I agree with him on that. We just disagree on how to fix it. But now with him not being so strident and it’s not a "I hate George Bush" kind of stuff. Now’s the time where you can make progress. Now’s the time. If we can find enough people who are honest enough, who are like, you know, like we have been, I don’t hate George W. Bush but I’m not a fan of his anymore. I mean, I was for George W. Bush and then I think he betrayed us and so I think actually what I have is a healthy view of George W. Bush. He’s right on a few things; he’s really wrong on a few other things. He’s not evil and he’s not God. Okay. Isn’t that what you would expect to believe about a President? But everybody on both sides have either deified their candidates and made it absolutely right on everything and it’s that way or it’s nothing, or they’ve taken the other side and they’ve looked at the other candidate and said they must be the antichrist. "Oh, George Bush is the most evil guy ever to be in the presidency." And now people are doing exactly what they did to Bill Clinton. I mean, I’m getting the mail that, you know, Barack Obama is the antichrist. Come on.

When we strike the reasonable balance and say, okay, I can completely disagree with this guy’s policies but you know what, this part over here is pretty decent or this part over here, we may actually have a chance to be able to make some real progress. Am I living in — am I sunshine and lollipops today?