A Clooney clown-around

Were you among the people hearing the rumor that George Clooney had bought a home in Newport Beach? Did you hear the more specific one that he’d bought the old John Wayne place?

At this point, it looks like the rumor was false, which got us thinking ? is that a surprise? Clooney moving to conservative Newport Beach? It was a joke, right? Everyone knows he’s one of Hollywood’s biggest practical jokers.

Here are a few recent quotations from the actor, who is up for a few Oscars in a week, that we put forth as evidence the whole thing was a hoax:

From Larry King Live: “When you hear Murrow saying, ‘We mustn’t confuse dissent with disloyalty,’ and ‘We should lead not only in the area of bombs but in the area of ideas.’ And when he says, ‘We can’t defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home,’ I think those have a lot to do with things that are going on today.”

From Newsweek: “I’m going to keep saying ‘liberal’ as loud as I can and as often as I can.”

Again from Larry King Live: “I don’t make any apologies about that. I am a liberal; I believe in it. People whisper that; they whisper it like you’d whisper ‘Nazi.’

“I’m confused when [‘liberal’] became a bad word. The liberal movement morally has stood on the right side of a lot of issues.”

We rest our case. (And, no, we don’t need to hear from the handful of liberals out there. We know you live here. We just don’t know why!)