Prediction.... 

....There will be no movies in 50 years about this Hollywood Blacklist.

//My concern is not with Mr. Downey, who hardly needs my help. My concern is with the temper of our age. Have we really gotten to the point where someone who makes a remark about how his drug addiction and its personal, legal, and penitential (in the sense of penitentiary) aftermath led him to rethink a few things about “liberalism” can follow him around for years and lead to a concerted attempt to “out” him as one of those evil conservatives?

Of course we have.

In the event, Mr. Downey gamely tried to deflect the political hectoring by denying that he even knows what a “liberal” really is. Only when the questions turned to his previous drug use and got frankly creepy did he decide it was time to leave. Provided he does not choose to add to his previous sins (his remark about not being a liberal and his friendship with Mel Gibson—who helped him overcome his drug addiction seem chief among these sins) there is no reason Mr. Downey’s career should not continue to flourish. He is, after all, a very talented and “bankable” actor. But he will occasionally be reminded of these sins, lest he relapse and, perhaps, in case the next activist reporter sees the chance to succeed in “outing” him as one of those intolerant “right-wingers.” Mr. Downey is a big enough star to survive a few errors, but he had best not relapse into heresy if he wants to continue working in the People’s Republic of Hollywood.

In a sense none of this is surprising. Given the ouster of a would-be chief at Mozilla for a private campaign donation, the busting of tenure for a Marquette professor who dared call out an overbearing, intolerant teacher, and the attempted destruction of businesses from the giant Chick-Fil-A to the tiny Memories Pizza, not to mention the potential firing of any California judge who dares violate the standards of professionalism by (gasp!) serving with the Boy Scouts, we can only marvel at the tolerance of Hollywood for Mr. Downey. Well, at least we should be thankful that, for now at least, Iron Man has kept his job. As for the rest of us, we would be foolish to expect tolerance for our own deviations from the Progressive party line.//