On Tuesday, Hollywood delivered to Capitol Hill a fake president and his “friend,” pushing for more drug courts.
Actors Martin Sheen and Matthew Perry appeared at a Senate Judiciary Committee subcommittee hearing. While testifying, Sheen asked senators to consider upping funding for the special courts, which prescribe rehabilitation programs for non-violent drug offenders instead of punishing them with incarceration.
When Sheen began, he tried to make sure nobody confused him with an expert or his even character from “The West Wing.”
“I would like to emphasize, however, that I am not a drug court professional nor am I an addiction specialist,” he said. “I make the distinction because we all know celebrity, to a greater or lesser degree, is so often confused for credibility — for instance I am not a former president of the United States, though I played one on TV.”
But that didn’t stop Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a pop culture enthusiast, from treating Sheen like one. (Klobuchar also famously asked now Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan during her confirmation hearing about the case of “Twilight’s” Edward v. Jacob).
“Mr. Sheen, I want to thank you for following in the footsteps of many former presidents, when they leave the Oval Office or the Oval Office set to pursue very important causes,” she began. “I just wondered why — you had many things you could have pursued as your cause — why you chose drug courts?”
Sheen discussed his work in the social justice community and said he considered advocating for drugs courts to be an extension. (For the record, he made no mention of his drug and alcohol-addled son, Charlie, at the hearing).
Sheen also gushed about the positive results. “To see that development of a human being, flower, and reach its potential and then turn to the community after graduation, which usually takes a year of very hard intense rehabilitation and 12-stepping, and begin to serve those people coming out of the cages in the orange jumpers in the shackles,” he said. “It has a miraculous effect.”
