Just Vote! Er, No, I Mean, Just Vote For Kerry

Jessica Well posts an interesting set of photos and quotes. (click on over to see her post and the photos.) One photo is of Oprah Winfrey, with Cameron Diaz, Christina Aguilera, and Drew Barrymore. The other is of Afghan women standing in line to vote.

This Oprah photo is from her "Voting Party" where she and several other celebrities encouraged people to get out and vote. Bush and Kerry are never mentioned, so you might think it was a non-partisan effort to get people to just get out and vote. Indeed, in this 8-photo sequence, for the first three frames I had the feeling of "Right on!" They really are just encouraging people to get out and make difference.

Then Cameron has a moment:

Oprah: Cameron is having a moment. What is this about?

Cameron: Well, I'm so proud of my friend [Drew Barrymore]. She took a whole year out of her busy schedule. She's a producer, she's an actor…she did this to take the time to educate people about it. And then I started listening to people saying, 'Oh, I don't vote because it just doesn't affect me. And I just got overwhelmed, because I think this is the best country in the world. And it just scares me that we're just going to squander it all away. That we're going to lay down and let people take it away from us.

Oprah: I am very, very afraid.

Cameron: I'm really scared. I don't know if you guys know this about our country…but people—we're all alone right now. And, where we used to be the strongest in the world, we're alone. So, that's the beginning of something terrible, and so it's very important to go out there.

Oprah: I know. You're afraid of what's going to happen if people do not vote.

This is hilarious. "If people do not vote." Vote for Kerry, obviously. Poor Cameron -- I guess the non-partisan part was just too much. But don't worry, dear Cameron. We have plenty of friends. They just don't speak French or German.

Let's see what the rest of the series holds. Frame 5 switches to Christina Aguilera, no partisanship there. Frame 6 has P Diddy with his "Vote or Die!" motto and in 7 he says the "The revolution will be televised." Nothing blindingly partisan there, but then, I'm not really sure what he's saying, either.

Then Oprah closes out the series:

"If every woman with children voted, then candidates could no longer just pay lip service to the education of your children in this country," Oprah says. "If every woman who has a child really cares about the welfare of her children, the health care for her children, and the education of her children, which is freedom in my mind, then [things] would all change."

Yeah. Well, so much for non-partisanship, eh? It was a good effort, though.

Meanwhile, from Afghanistan:

... Zalmay Khalilzad, U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, said those women were warned that Taliban remnants would attack polling places during the Oct. 9 elections. So the women performed the ritual bathing and said the prayers of those facing death. Then, rising at 3 a.m., they trekked an hour to wait in line for the polls to open at 7 a.m. In the province of Kunar an explosion 100 meters from a long line of waiting voters did not cause anyone to leave the line.