Mick Foley Talks Politics, Criticisms Of WWE, "Sanity" & More
Mick Foley, who appears on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart tonight, recently did an interview with Salon.com. Foley talked about some of his charity work, politics, being honored at 'The Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear' and much more. Here are some excerpts:
On being honored at the rally: I don't know about sanity. It was officially for "reasonableness," and I know that because I'm looking at it as it hangs around my neck. No, especially because one can argue that many of my actions in and around the wrestling ring were not all that reasonable so I think it's appropriate that Jon specified that the award is for being reasonable everywhere else but my day job.
On wrestling being attacked in the Linda McMahon Senate race: As someone who is close to the subject and who has fed his children through the business of professional wrestling for their entire lives (I've been in it for 25 years; I've had a family for almost 19), although Blumenthal won in Connecticut, I think the idea that people were criticizing a form of entertainment enjoyed by millions of people across the country was very condescending and may have led to the feeling Americans had of democrats being out of touch.
On Democrats needing to get in touch with their inner pro-wrestler: I think they need to make Jim Webb the senate majority leader and attempt to shift the image of democrats from liberal weenies to tough-talking, straight-shooting Americans. I really respect what Harry Reid has done and I think Nancy Pelosi is a great congressperson, but I do not think that people can connect with them at all. If every liberal in the country was willing to give up lattes for two years, you could put those republicans in the unenviable position of having to talk about those "damned whiskey drinking liberals."
His criticisms of WWE: I openly criticized them and I thought that a couple of storylines that (the Blumenthal campaign) trotted out to hurt Mrs. McMahon were indeed terrible storylines, but I don't think that they're indicative at all of the type of program WWE is. It reminds me of reading Joe Lieberman's memoir, "In Praise of Public Life," (Simon & Schuster, 2000) where he warned that with senators who make thousands of votes over the course of their careers, that one or two votes can serve as fodder for political attack ads. As an American citizen watching the fifth game of the World Series, I was just irate over the sheer number of political attack ads coming from both sides. The only person who serves to gain from that is the guy doing the voice-overs.
To read the rest of the interview, which has lots more with Foley including what's next for him, Tori Amos and much more, click here.
Source: Salon.com