George Clooney has declared himself the Hillary Clinton of the Oscars in one of the smartest swipes ever taken at the Democratic presidential candidate. Clooney is a huge, huge Barack Obama fan, having called him "the best candidate I've ever seen" and basically declaring he should be president from now until eternity. And he recently got a huge platform to bolster the candidate as the cover boy on the Mar. 3 issue of Time, which included a Sam Jones photo spread and a feature article from Joel Stein, who had Clooney over for dinner. But of course Time doesn't care much about movie megastar Clooney's political punditry, so he had to sneak in his attack as part of an roundup of his Oscar picks, in which he declared he will lose his shot at the Best Actor Oscar, just like a certain loser politician will lose her shot at Best Democrat In A Leading Role. Clooney's exact words, plus bonus video of the actor at Stein's house, after the jump.

But there is no way Daniel Day Lewis won't win. For me, it's like being Hillary Clinton. If it weren’t for Barack Obama, it would have been a very good year. If [Michael Clayton, for which Clooney is nominated] has a shot at anything, it's best supporting actress with Tilda Swinton.

See? It's a foregone conclusion that Obama will win! Everyone knows it! Hillary=LOSER.

Clooney won't likely take any flack for the joke because he's forthright in his political views and, more importantly, likable. In this video, the former contractor gets likable with Time writer Stein as he wraps up his journey through Stein's back rooms and crawl spaces, where he has been trying to find an alarm that interrupted dinner: