Viggo Vexes Over Palin

Mortensen gets political

At the Appaloosa premiere in Hell-Ay, all eyes were on Lord of the Rings hunk Viggo Mortensen. Poor costar Ed Harris. Maybe Ed should show his salami in a movie like V.M. had the nerve to do (Eastern Promises), and then maybe his peter meter'll go up, too, just a thought.

Anyway, Viggo-love plays a rough-ridin' cowboy who comes across the titular town, corrupted by a rancher who holds complete control over the suffering town folk. Sounds all too familiar, huh? We wondered if the fellas in this western flick reminded Vig-hon of another rancher in the White House. And boy did he answer a mouthful:

"It's the policy of the past eight years in particular of stealing from the poor and giving to the rich," Viggo shot right out, like a goose bump in a nude scene. "It's come to the inevitable conclusion...the failure of the economic institutions." This dude definitely checks CNN daily, smart guy.

Viggo, tho, swears he's an optimist: "Not only do I think it could get better, I think the crisis economically that we're in now really affects everyone, especially the people who don't have much. I think it's gonna force the presidential candidates and the candidates for Congress to talk about real things, not about Sarah Palin 24 hours a day. It think they're gonna have to go back to talking about real issues, so that's a positive aspect."

We gotta disagree on one point—talking about Palin is a "real thing" when there's a real possibility this gun-totin', big-haired inexperienced hellraiser could wind up the bigwig in the Oval Office. We don't dish about S.P. just for fun.

But let's play dumb and just come out and ask: Who on earth is your pick for prez, Viggo? "There's only one real choice, Barack Obama, if you're realistic about the issues and the state of the nation," piped Vig, quite diplomatically. "The political stunts aside, with Sarah Palin and so forth, you gotta go with the person who's speaking consistently about the issues."

Gotta love a man who speaks his mind. Especially one who looks that fine in a suit.

—With additional sass by Becky Bain