Peter Fonda Gets Off The Bike

I just noticed a post over on WFMU's Beware of the Blog about Peter Fonda's second directorial work, Idaho Transfer, which I've had a copy of for some time and should really sit down to watch, but I noticed this link to some statements the former counter culture actor made in Cannes earlier in May:

“I’m training my grandchildren to use long-range rifles,” said the actor, 71. “For what purpose? Well, I’m not going to say the words 'Barack Obama’, but …”

What!?!

I also noticed that the an auto Google search term for "peter fonda obama traitor" comes up! Some more context on his words:

At the Cannes film festival in France Peter Fonda lambasted US President Barack Obama calling him a traitor for his handling of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

"I sent an email to President Obama saying, 'You are a f***ing traitor,' using those words… 'You're a traitor, you allowed foreign boots on our soil telling our military – in this case the coastguard – what they can and could not do, and telling us, the citizens of the United States, what we could or could not do'," he said, reported AFP.

The actor was in Cannes for the premiere of "The Big Fix" when he verbally attacked the US President. Fonda is a known environmentalist and the documentary "The Big Fix" follows him as he attempts to gain access to Louisiana beaches to assess the impact of the BP oil spill.

Also on Fonda’s target list was BP itself. He called BP “a bunch of Brits – I thought we kicked them out a long time ago. They tried to get back in in 1812, but they didn't make it."

What is with these actors who were pillars of the counter culture movement in the sixties and seventies and their transformation into gun toting conservatives? I guess Heston and Fonda had more in common than they realized.