A-list olds boost Biden; Netflix toasts journo we'd 'Rather' forget

CBS’ Dan Rather ended his nightly telecasts in the mid 2000s with the word “courage.”

An online news site just posted a negative Taylor Swift review without a byline, fearing the Swifties’ wrath.

We’ve come a long way, baby.

Not only do today’s journalists cover for President Joe Biden’s mental decline, they can’t even stand up to pre-teens on social media.

Then again, the CBS anchor is back in the news despite the endless shadow RatherGate cast on his career. Netflix will debut “Rather” May 1, by all accounts a fawning documentary covering his days in journalism.

It’s like tackling the life of O.J. Simpson and downplaying the whole "murder trial" thing.

It’s not even the first time Hollywood pretended Rather didn’t attempt to rig the 2004 presidential election. Remember “Truth?” The 2015 film cast Robert Redford as Rather, suggesting he had the Texas National Guard story dead to rights all along.

Working title: “Fake but Accurate: The Movie!”

Then again, maybe you don’t remember it. “Truth” made a microscopic $2 million at the U.S. box office.

SNL pulls its punches ... again

“Saturday Night Live” has nothing to say about the anti-Israel protests raging across college campuses.

The closest the once-mighty show got to the topic was mocking the three Ivy League presidents’ D.C. testimony, but that sketch targeted the GOP’s Elise Stefanik more harshly than the morally warped trio.

SNL still may have predicted today’s campus chaos ... nine years ago. The older sketch has Dakota Johnson playing a young woman getting dropped off to college for the first time by her teary-eyed dad (Taran Killam):

They exchange pleasantries and, after she leaves the car, an ISIS truck swings by and picks her up. The ISIS soldiers fire off their weapons and say, “Death to America!”

Sound familiar?

Too bad we need the Wayback Machine for SNL to speak truth to power ...

Maher speaks truth to power ... for now

Bill Maher has been swatting woke crazies on his HBO showcase for the last few years. Nothing new there.

Last week, Maher took it a step farther. A Neil Armstrong-sized step. He:

• praised Gov. Ron DeSantis for calling out Disney’s grooming practices,
• attacked his fellow liberals for ignoring the latter point,
• decried Drag Queen Story Hour in no uncertain terms, and
• slammed Disney for its “not-so-secret gay agenda.”

Did Rush Limbaugh come back to life in Maher’s body? Is the comedian gunning for Trump’s VP slot?

No. He just can’t stand to see the modern left devolve into a cult-like party.

Conservatives aren’t locking arms around their new best chum. Some say Maher’s rhetoric is a pose, a feint to draw a few right-leaning fans. Others argue he’ll still vote for President Biden over Donald Trump.

Either way, no one in mainstream pop culture is saying what Maher is, and he’s reaching an audience that may, sadly, tune out a Limbaugh successor.

So, yeah, Maher matters.

Hollywood gets box office bellyache

The box office is making studio executives as nervous as Morgan Wallen’s PR team. The numbers are way down this month, and upcoming titles like “The Latest Planet of the Apes Movie No One Asked For” won’t help.

Then there’s this.

“Spider-Man 2” released in 2004, hit theaters anew this year and became the number 2 movie at the box office April 22, beaten only by “Civil War.” It gets worse. The Spidey sequel was shown in fewer than 500 theaters, while most new releases get 2,000-4,000 screens.

People would rather watch an old movie they’ve already seen than spanking new flicks like “Abigail,” “Money Man” or “The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare.”

Better buy Tums in bulk, Tinseltown.

Mark Hamill goes full Jedi mind-trick

“Star Wars” alum Mark Hamill declared on X that Joe Biden is the best American president. Ever.

Here’s hoping his intervention goes as planned.

The same holds for Michael Douglas. The Oscar-winning actor, when pressed on the fact that our president (81) is roughly his own age (79), responded by saying Biden is “sharp as a tack.”

Thoughts and prayers for our elderly A-listers.