James Bond Speaks (I Listen)

Daniel Craig as "Will Atenten" in "Dream House"

Daniel Craig: Pols are 'sh**heads' By: Tim Mak   December 26, 2011

Actor Daniel Craig put on a display of straight-talk that might have endeared him to voters had he been on the campaign trail, telling Men’s Journal that politicians are “sh**heads” who “stab you in the f**king back.” “Politicians are sh*theads,” he said in an interview that appears in the January edition of the magazine, which is on newsstands now. “That’s how they become politicians, even the good ones. We’re actors, we’re artists, we’re very nice to each other. They’ll turn around and stab you in the f**cking back.” Craig said that former British Prime Minister Tony Blair had done unprecedented outreach to celebrities, but that he had turned off to the idea. “Tony Blair started it much more than anybody’s ever done. ‘Go and have tea at 10 Downing Street’,” he said. “…You immediately are aligning yourself with a political party.” The “James Bond” and “Girl With A Dragon Tattoo” actor said that he doesn’t have the grasp of knowledge to articulately speak on politics, unlike fellow actor George Clooney. “George has his finger on the political pulse, and he’s one of those guys who can get up and talk, and I don’t have that,” Craig said. “If someone shoves a microphone in your face and says, ‘Explain yourself,’ you have to have a 100 percent understanding of why you’re doing it, and unless you’re 100 percent, don’t f**king do it, leave it alone, let your work speak for itself.” Craig also talks about what’s it’s like to be under a microscope because of his celebrity. “I’m not a politician - you don’t need to know everything about me, you don’t get to see my tax returns,” he says. “If you sell yourself and give yourself up and share your innermost secrets, don’t be surprised when that bites you in the end.”

© 2011 POLITICO LLC NOTE:  A little unseasonal, but what of it?   I mean, we're practically post-season (although we  leave our Christmas tree up until January 14th.)  Straight-ish talk from the usually excellent   Daniel Craig,  who makes a pretty good James Bond,  I think.   I even liked him in  Dream House.   Personally, I think he's just being diplomatic about George Clooney, who recently suggested that the Democratic party could and should "market and sell" the 2009-2011 period as   "three pretty good years."  (Probably true if you're George Clooney from Lake Como, who probably already owns that personal triumphal arch (link)  I've been  dreaming about for so long.)    I mean -- would you like to live through another three years like the past triplet? All that being said, the shaken vodka martini is a cloudy dilute abomination that is not even a martini.  And I have no idea whatsoever what Daniel is driving at in the second sentence of the second paragraph.  If you can figure it out, I'll meet you (and stand you) a martini.