Sacha Baron Cohen Tries to Harm Ron Paul

ignore the controversy or you'll fuel sacha/borat/ he's pretending to be.

don't fall for it.

Do they vet interviewers at all over at CFL? Anyone who's seen Cohen at work could have predicted this.

Presidential candidates will do almost anything for publicity. But Ron Paul's appearance in Sacha Baron Cohen's upcoming Bruno movie suggests he draws the line at making sex tapes with gay Austrian TV hosts.

In a five-minute scene, comedian Cohen tries—and fails—to seduce the Texas congressman and former Republican presidential candidate in a Washington hotel room. A spokeswoman for Paul confirmed the appearance but declined to discuss details, which were provided by two people who attended a test screening last week.

The film, slated for release in July, is the follow-up to 2006's Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, about a Kazakh news reporter's quest to find a wife. Bruno follows a similar arc: After the flamboyant TV host's show in Austria gets canceled, he heads to the United States to try to resurrect his career.

The scene with Paul, filmed in early 2008, occurs about halfway through the movie, after Bruno gets the idea that you have to make a sex tape to become famous. (Stop reading here if you want to see the movie unspoiled.)

Cut to a nondescript hotel suite where Bruno sits across from Ron Paul. After a brief exchange of pleasantries, a light blows out on the set. Bruno apologizes for the technical difficulties and suggests that he and Paul wait in the other room while the crew fixes the light.

The other room, it turns out, is a bedroom. The lighting is low, and the film is now grainy—not unlike a sex tape—as it cuts to a hidden spy camera. There's a spread of Champagne and strawberries and caviar on a table.

Bruno tells Paul to make himself comfortable. Paul sits down on the bed. Bruno turns on some music and starts dancing. Paul is visibly uneasy but doesn't say anything at first. He picks up a newspaper and pretends to read it. "You can tell at each weird gay detail, he [chalks] it up to, This guy is European," says one of the attendees.

Finally, Paul asks what's going on. "Don't worry about it, Dr. Paul," says Bruno, who then unbuckles his belt and drops his pants. At that point, Paul snaps up and storms out of the room.

As Paul is walking away, you can hear him say, several times, something like, "This guy is a queer!" "The word queer comes out of his mouth three or four times," says an attendee.

A spokeswoman for Paul confirmed that the episode took place but declined to provide details. "We don't want it to distract from his message," said press secretary Rachel Mills. "Now is the time when people need to be listening to him on economic issues."

Mills, who was present at the taping, did elaborate on the "queer" line. "I heard him say 'weird,' " she wrote in an e-mail. "In any case, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, Queer as Folk … it's not exactly a shocking term if that's what he did say."

Mills also noted that Cohen's people were "very deceptive in their tactics." At the time, she thought they were "legitimate," but now confesses to some concern. "I'm familiar with his work, so you can imagine how I feel about it," she said.

The rest of the movie is a mix of interviews and stunts targeting celebrities and conservatives of various stripes. At one point, Bruno enrolls in a homosexual reprogramming course with evangelical Christians and spends the whole time hitting on the trainers. He sits down with a leader of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, who tells Bruno to leave after Bruno tells him "your King Osama" looks like a "dirty wizard." During an interview with Paula Abdul, Bruno makes immigrant day laborers get down on their hands and knees and serve as furniture. And in the movie's much-hyped set piece, he stages a cage fight in Arkansas where, to the audience's surprise, he proceeds to make out passionately with another man.

Jesse Benton, senior vice president of Campaign for Liberty and former campaign spokesman for Paul, said Paul was not familiar with Cohen's HBO program, Da Ali G Show. "If it's not on hard-core financial news, he doesn't follow it," Benton said. But, he added, "It sounds like it's going to be pretty funny."

From Slate.com

do that to Jesse Ventura.

and BTW --- didn't his staff do their homework and watch Borat?? They should've given the good Dr. a heads-up on what sort of comic Cohen is. Seems to me they're not doing their jobs correctly. No way would Cohen have gotten by me without 1st letting Dr. Paul know who he was. Hopefully the staff does their job this time and not sign a release form for the footage to be in the film.

Come on, its a gas. I can picture Ron running out of the room screaming "Queer!" Taking long strides tucking his butt in. Its kinda like punked. I bet he had a great laugh about it. and thats how he should play it off.

"while I respect the freedom of two consenting adults to do what they want to each other, personally I don't play on that side of the street."

Watch freedomtofascism.com

But the best thing is to just ignore it, and laugh at it for now. Any kind of response will give him (cohen) the publicity he is looking for.

Better to wait until the movie comes out, and then pan it, and disrupt it. Cover the internet with explanations of how bad the movie is, explaining that you are a democrat, and don't like ron paul, but were appalled at Cohen's behavior, or how you are gay, and can't stand the way cohen stereotypes gay people, how it furthers the stereo type. How you really like Ron Paul. - That kind of thing.

The best politicians can use these things for their own benefit.

Jeez - I always liked Sacha's shows and characters, except for this Bruno guy. Ali G was always my favourite.

Alas, the media better not make a big deal of this. I can take a joke, but to spin it as anything else - grrrr. As soon as I can get my hands on a screener copy of this movie, I'll be uploading it to all the bittorrent sites on the Internet. People will watch this movie anyway, but I'll make sure to deny the movie studio every penny I can. Hit them in the wallet. Teach them to make fun of our guy. But then, I'm not thinking straight right now in the heat of the moment.

Oh, by the way, if you're interested, the movie is called:

"Bruno: Delicious Journeys Through America For The Purpose Of Making Heterosexual Males Visibly Uncomfortable In The Presence Of A Gay Foreigner In A Mesh T-Shirt."

Throw the J*w down the well indeed :-)

I like sasha cohen but this is a dick move
Hes just messing with some old guy
Sorry, if you put ANYONE in front of a camera and some guy takes his pants off hes gonna say something like queer or homo or gaywad
It's been hard, but not impossible, to convert the gays to ron pauls side, and this doesnt help
Protip - Sasha Cohen isn't Barney Franks type (too old)
Doubleprotip - Sasha Cohen also isn't Nancy Pelosi's type (too male)

This piece was filmed in early 2008 according to the article. I seriously can't believe someone in charge of media relations of anyone in the public eye, especially someone running for president wouldn't be aware of who cohen is by then. This was extremely poor form. And no one in the paul campaign mentioned this event happening until test screenings of the new movie forced slate to contact rachael mills. This whole thing makes me angry, and this is coming from someone who has seen every season of Da Ali G show, all the movies, and plans to go see Bruno! Angry because he shouldn't have been suckered into being the butt of a joke and angry because this will most definitely make him look bad and come back negatively on him. I agree with the post below, someone should be fired!

I think the best response would have been for Ron to say, in a concerned tone, that he was a medical doctor and Cohen should, "See his physician, because thats not healthy looking," referring the offending member. This would've killed the bit and then he could walk out.

He really got lucky because the Doc could've easily left him with a black eye and a bloody nose!

Definitely an agitator. Works hard at making polite Americans look bad. Worthless scum.

"You are a den of Vipers.I intend to rout you out and by the Eternal God I will rout you out."

Might not like what he gets. Does anyone else remember Barney Frank the Republican? You know, the one who was running an underage gay brothel? I guess you just have to switch parties to make that kind of thing disappear.

That shows such disrespect on Cohen's part. How mean! Just knowing he was mocked by that ignorant buffoon really pisses me off. From what I've seen of him, Cohen really enjoys shoving his junk in other men's faces. Whatever the doctor said was justified.

I'm so sad and disgusted right now. I'm not going to watch it. This is worse than Sarah Palin's prank call. Ahhhh.... Is there anyone over there who is some what mainstream and has a clue? Ron Paul works way too hard to have this set back.