Sudan is on the verge of a humanitarian crisis, which is surely part of the reason why zillions of Hill staffers, reporters, and citizens piled into the Senate Foreign Relations Committee meeting on that topic on Wednesday. George Clooney’s presence may also have been a factor.
Though U.S. special envoy to Sudan Princeton Lyman and other experts testified on the situation, the crowd, including the senators on the committee, was dying to hear from Clooney. The actor and activist recently took a trip to the volatile Sudan/South Sudan border, where people are suffering while the governments argue about oil.
Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., yielded his chance to ask questions of the experts in order to move the hearing along when it seemed that Clooney’s testimony would be interrupted by a Senate vote. He was followed by Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., and and Mark Udall, D-Co. “I’m well aware that that long line that began forming at eight o’clock wasn’t to see Johnny Isakson,” Issakson quipped. “It was to see George Clooney.”
Even Lyman agreed that it was time for the actor to speak and offered no closing remarks. “I don’t think the crowds were out here to see us,” he said humbly.
Clooney made his way to the mike to a chorus of cameras snapping. (“Evidently, moving is a very interesting thing,” Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., noted). Clooney talked for six minutes about the nightmarish situation on the Sudanese border, where he met a child who’d had his hands blown off during a bombing.
The horrific details did little to temper the crowd’s Clooney fever, and dozens of grinning fans swarmed the actor after the hearing, as he was swept into a waiting SUV.
