Actor George Clooney traveled over to CBS and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on Tuesday to promote the stage adaptation of his 2005 movie Good Night, and Good Luck about Edward R. Murrow and McCarthyism. With modern-day politics an obvious backdrop, Clooney urged journalists to be on the “right side of history” even if it “is not fun at the moment.”
Colbert led by recalling how he first came up with the idea for the Gulf of America back on The Colbert Report, “Trump steals all of my ideas and you better lawyer up, mother[bleep], because I'm coming for you.”
Clooney then sought to return to the movie, “I’m not sure you’re going to need lawyers. I think you’re going to need more than that…No, you know, we planned on doing it, like, about, two years ago because I think we were looking for, because look, these are subjects that, you know, Grant and I, my partner Grant Heslov and I, wrote this 20 years ago because I was being called a traitor to the country for being against the war in Iraq and they put me on a deck of cards and called me a traitor.”
By “they,” Clooney probably meant the National Examiner tabloid magazine, which isn’t exactly a fair representation of “they.” Nevertheless, Clooney waxed poetic about journalism:
We have had this issue where power, kind of, hates the fourth estate. They hate journalism and my father’s an anchorman and news man and we've always believed in the idea of when the other three estates: the judiciary branch and the executive branch, when they all fail you, you need that fourth estate, right, it has to be the people who can hold people to accounts and this is a moment of us at our best and I always like to show and I like the idea of seeing ourselves at our best and I think that’s an exciting thing to do.
Colbert agreed, “Well, sometimes you are at your best when it is a very dark time because that is when you have to be your best and this was the height of McCarthyism."
Clooney continued, “Well, yeah, I mean, you’re never at your best when it is easy…but it’s really true, it's those whole ideas of, you know, being on the right side of history is not fun at the moment when you do it. It’s nice later when you can look back later and go ‘Wow, I was really,’ you know and he could do that later.”
While Clooney helps CBS engage in some self-back patting, some context is in order. In 1964, Daniel Schorr alleged Barry Goldwater going to Germany was part of a plan to work with the Nazis. Nearly two-and-a-half decades later, Dan Rather tried to tell George H.W. Bush that he and Ronald Reagan have “made us hypocrites in the face of the world,” only for Bush to throw it right back at Rather by reminding him when CBS had to air a black screen because he was off camera complaining about tennis. Most notoriously, he was fired after a failed takedown of the younger Bush’s National Guard service. So, when Margaret Brennan blames the Holocaust on free speech, she is simply the latest example in an inglorious CBS tradition of partisan activism, some might even say of being on the wrong side of history.
Here is a transcript for the February 18-taped show:
CBS The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
2/19/2025
12:14 AM ET
STEPHEN COLBERT: Trump steals all of my ideas and you better lawyer up, mother[bleep], because I'm coming for you.
GEORGE CLOONEY: I’m not sure you’re going to need lawyers. I think you’re going to need more than that.
COLBERT: Okay, yes, shaman.
CLOONEY: Yeah, something. No, you know, we planned on doing it, like, about, two years ago because I think we were looking for, because look, these are subjects that, you know, Grant and I, my partner Grant Heslov and I, wrote this 20 years ago because I was being called a traitor to the country for being against the war in Iraq—
COLBERT: Right. Sure.
CLOONEY: — and they put me on a deck of cards and called me a traitor and stuff and I thought “Well, it’s always interesting that—”
COLBERT: You were on those—?
CLOONEY: Yeah, yeah, deck of traitors.
COLBERT: Wow.
CLOONEY: Yeah, I am very proud of that. I actually, kind of, am proud of it. But, forever, we have had this issue where power, kind of, hates the fourth estate. They hate journalism and my father’s an anchorman and news man and we've always believed in the idea of when the other three estates: the judiciary branch and the executive branch, when they all fail you, you need that fourth estate, right, it has to be the people who can hold people to accounts and this is a moment of us at our best and I always like to show and I like the idea of seeing ourselves at our best and I think that’s an exciting thing to do.
COLBERT: Well, sometimes you are at your best when it is a very dark time because that is when you have to be your best and this was the height of McCarthyism.
CLOONEY: Well, yeah, I mean, you’re never at your best when it is easy—
COLBERT: That’s why it’s called courage.
CLOONEY: Yeah, but it’s really true, it's those whole ideas of, you know, being on the right side of history is not fun at the moment when you do it. It’s nice later when you can look back later and go “Wow, I was really,” you know and he could do that later.
