Tom Cruise: Intelligent or just crazy?

If you only hear the recent snippets of the Matt Lauer interview with Tom Cruise, you might be excused for thinking he went off the deep end with Matt. (our local paper covered it as though he had gone nuts) but then you wouldn't really be listening to all he said.

Ya, he was pretty rude at times (was jet lag the cause? who knows) but his reasoning is solid. It isn't good enough for public commentators to come out and say "and now here's a story about kids doing well on Ritalin" because IT DOES send a mixed signal to viewers. This is where all biased journalism falls into the area.

The US Govt comes out and says "Iraq is going to be a free place" and they get jumped on because they are telling people what they want them to hear. The news producer says "our story will focus on the positive impact of ritalin" and as a result, the viewer comes out with a distorted view on it. But if someone accuses them of faulty journalism, they don't want to get called on it.

While Tom's recent behaviour may be a bit "over the top", and is likely losing him a lot of fans, it's something he is passionate about. And if he hasn't been passionate about anything before, then hey - good for him for finding something. How many people like to see their stars passionate about something that they themselves don't know about, will be interesting to see. It's not like an Angelina Jolie going out to save African orphans, which is something that almost everyone can say "this isn't good - what can we do>" or 9/11 tributes - when it's an issue such as medicine where people are told to accept what someone (usually a Dr) says and then there are conflicting stories (like Kyoto as well), those who stand on one side will always be ridiculed.

If you read page 3 of the interview (last real paragraph), I think Tom sums it up best. (and here's the direct quote:
Cruise: You just communicate about it. And the important thing is, like you and I talk about it, whether it's okay, if I want to know something, I go and find out. Because I don't talk about things that I don't understand. I'll say, you know what? I'm not so sure about that. I'll go find more information about it so I can come to an opinion based on the information that I have.

Earlier they had said:
Lauer: It's very impressive to listen to you. Because clearly, you've done the homework. And you know the subject.

Cruise: And you should. And you should do that also
)



Now, imagine if our leaders did that. That would be interesting.

Today Weekend did a GREAT follow-up, I thought. No link yet - but hopefully they'll post it. It had three good counter points: two doctors and Marie Osmond who despite going through post-partum depression with the help of drugs, was GENERALLY on Tom's side (while obviously not saying he's absolutely right).


'I'm passionate about life' - Today Entertainment - MSNBC.com