Far worse is the case with denizens of that screwball sanctuary called Hollywood. To be sure, an actor or actress has as much right to an opinion on public issues as anybody else, and there is no natural law that says their opinions aren't worth listening to. (One lifelong actor, after all, became an eminently successful president of the United States.) But why anybody should feel obliged to listen to, let alone value, the political opinions of Barbra Streisand, George Clooney or Sean Penn simply beggars the imagination.
Their sole qualification is that they are celebrities -- famous as entertainers. Most Hollywood "stars" got there simply by having looks that register well on camera. Unlike actors on the stage, they don't even necessarily have to know how to act -- able directors, using short takes and enough repeats, can sooner or later get what they want out of them. A good many have made their way upward via the casting couch. And it's a safe bet that there are plenty of vivacious starlets who would be hard put to come up with a high school diploma.
But they are indisputably famous, and they are just as opinionated as college presidents, and so their views on Iraq, etc. are dinned into our ears ad nauseam. (Not, by the way, that college presidents are infallible, but they do have the minimum credentials to be listened to.) Decisions on public issues are hard enough, without having to be arrived at with the advice of a bunch of witless singers and piano-players.