in my opinion, she is doing a wonderful job. larry: john, you on her. what do you think? you know, this is the time where we needed secretary clinton to step up for sudan, and she is doing that. she is making calls on an almost daily basis to various world leaders, and to the parties in sudan, so they have stepped up the diplomacy. she promised that s what would happen about a month ago. and she has delivered. so we re very, very appreciative of that and want to see more of the same going forward before january 9. i just talked to i did just get a message from senator john kerry, who is the ranking member on foreign relations, and he s going to go in the next two weeks. he s going to head to sudan, so it s high on everybody s list right now. larry: you met with him and with richard lugar, right? i talked to him on the phone. larry: were you encouraged by that? yes, we were, and with the speaker, nancy pelosi, and we were encouraged by everyone s involvement. of course,
and they need the spotlight, and i don t. just one. that s only once. larry: we re back with george clooney and john prendergast, at the national press club talking about the situation in southern sudan where they re just back. he has so much on his plate, george, the president, the economy, the coming elections. really, how much attention did he focus on this? i think for a period of time, probably not as much as he should have. i think that that happens when you have so many other things on your plate. but what is apparent now is that there is a tremendous amount of focus. because in some ways, you have to look at it as if this is one that, you know, the president there was a peace agreement with the bush administration. we don t want he doesn t want to see that be lost.
we re back with george and john how that papaling packs we re back with george clooney and john prendergast. how much of this fight that you engage in, if we can call it a fight, are you hampered by the fact of americans have greater interests, george? well, you know, sure, there s donor fatigue in certain ways. we re not asking for any money. hampered, no. because the american people have a tremendous capacity to care. and here s the truth. the truth of the matter is this. if i put it to you like this, if you took two minutes out of your day, out of one day, just today or tomorrow, to write an e-mail, it s a modern day now, we re e-mailing, and twittering and facebooking. write an e-mail to the white house saying, please do everything you can, diplomatly, again, not causing any money, not costing any soldiers. do everything you can. you have my support, even if i didn t vote for you. you know, the same thing to senator lugar and the same thing
there and get into diplomacy before we have to go there and start mopping up blood. larry: because after a while, john, it just sounds like numbers, doesn t it? that s tragic. it can be numbing. but the good news is, look at places like liberia, we have all seen blood diamond the movie. sierra leone. it turns out today it is completely at peace because there was an investment in ending that war there, investment in ending the war in liberia. those countries are growing rapidly. so this is sudan can be next. we can invest in a diplomatic solution, cut off all that the billions and billions of dollars of humanitarian aid over the next 20 years if war resumes if we can get ahead of it this time, broker a peaceful settlement and institutions that can end up making the country self-sufficient.
know. larry: we re back with george clooney and john prendergast. george, we mentioned earlier about celebrity. do you think who you are helps? look, i ve been very lucky in my life over the years. i was a broke actor and i used to cut tobacco for a living. i got lucky. and part of that, for good or ill, is that a lot of cameras now follow you around. i get much more attention than i need or deserve. and there are an awful lot of people in the world that need some attention. so my job is to try and spread that attention around to the people who need it. that s my job. i m not a policy maker. my only job is to come out and say, shine a light on in an area, help shine a light on an area that needs it, because we know omar bashir, for instance,