George Clooney acknowledges he’s not a policy maker and makes fun of the credentials he does have.
“I was two-time sexiest man alive,” he joked.
But he actually knows his stuff, too. The Academy Award winner was in the District Tuesday to talk about his recent trip to Sudan.
His day consisted of an early morning appearance on “Today” with NBC anchor Ann Curry, who had joined him on his trip, a visit with Sen. Dick Lugar, a conversation with Sen. John Kerry, a call to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and, of course, a meeting with President Obama at the White House. In the evening, he headed to the Council on Foreign Relations for an even more detailed discussion about his visit to southern Sudan, where he was joined by human rights activist John Prendergast.
The two occasionally interjected humor into what was mostly a sobering and serious talk about the region.
“We were in these huts, which was a really interesting place to stay,” Clooney said. “We were roommates, he snores,” he said motioning to Prendergast.
“He does other things,” Prendergast said.
“I was cold and lonely,” Clooney said.
Ahhh what? Moving on …
Clooney warned Sudan could again teeter into a bloody civil war when the citizens of southern Sudan vote Jan. 9 on whether they want to split from the Arab-Muslim north.
“We were late to Congo, we were late to Warsaw, we were late to Darfur, we were late to Rwanda, we have the opportunity to be ahead of this,” he argued.
He urged the United States to become diplomatically involved.
“We can pick this up in five or six months when thousands and thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people can be killed and we can mop this mess up, or we can do everything we can to stop it before it happens,” he said. “We have an actual opportunity to stop it.”
