Journal pudge's Journal: "W" is Pure Fiction 26
On Thursday, Stephen Colbert had a clip of Oliver Stone's new movie "W" about George W. Bush, showing Bush being asked his biggest mistake at a White House press conference in April 2004 (see the clip on that page at about 18:50).
In the clip, Bush (played by Josh Brolin) nervously answers, "I wish you would have given me this written question beforehand, so I could prepare for it." Then he composes himself and says, with a degree of anguish, "John, I'm sure historians will look back and say, gosh, he could have done it better this way, or that way." He looks around the room, as if pleading for help to save him from the spot he's in.
Many of the words are basically accurate, but in real life (see the clip around 51:00), they were delivered completely differently. The first sentence was given as a confident joke, with no nervousness of any kind (and Stone neatly swapped in the word "prepare" for "plan," implying Bush has to prepare his answers).
And the real-life delivery of the second sentence showed no anguish at all, just some trouble coming up with an answer to the question on the spot.
This is, of course, typical Stone. He doesn't care about truth. He cares about trying to make people believe the inventions that he prefers, rather than any facts that, you know, happened. He has his vision of who Bush "is," and he will do his best to convince you it's true by taking the facts and turning them inside out, hoping you won't notice. His technique, like most propaganda, requires the viewer to be ignorant, and so this tells you how little he thinks of his audience.
This is punctuated by Stone's butchering of Bush's real-life statement, "I don't want to sound like I've made no mistakes," into "I don't want to sound like I haven't made no mistakes." A subtle change that serves the purpose of furthering Stone's "truth" of who Bush "is."
Stone isn't worth bothering with most of the time, but especially when he's pretending to portray real people. I suppose the movie might be good if you like fiction, and can treat it as such while watching it. But most people can't do that, and it certainly wasn't made to be treated as such.
The saddest thing to me is that Stone's movie exemplifies the very nature of "truthiness," and Colbert won't call him on it, because he's in the tank for Obama too.
Cross-posted on <pudge/*>.
Stand-by for a move away from non-fiction (Score:2)
There was a highly satisfying moment at the screening for "An American Carol" when they showed the trailer for "W", and the audience booed the trailer.
As we slouch into the Second Coming of Carter, there is a real opportunity for the US to show that our system of government is inclusive, and can peacefully accommodate views with which not everyone agrees.
The Supre
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As we slouch into the Second Coming of Carter
I never thought I'd ever see a worse President than Carter, but Bush was it. Now I pray I'll never see a worse President than Bush.
It's pretty damned bad when you look back at Nixon and wish we had such fine leaders today.
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The conlclusion that I'm moving towards is that the subprime meltdown was the political deal Bush had to cut for support for Iraq.
One simply cannot fault the loyal opposition for simple, hard politics. They offer Bush something he should know is not bright alongside what he wants, then the bill comes due right around election time. The Pelosis, Reids, Franks, and Dodds have truly been "the most ethical Congress ever", and they have the single-digit approval ratings to
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Almost as bad? How has Congress not been FAR WORSE than Bush? It's their budget, their bills, after all.
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I never thought I'd ever see a worse President than Carter, but Bush was it.
Not even close, from where I sit. Carter was far worse on every metric I can imagine.
Now, Bush was worse for Republicans in that Carter made people vote GOP and Bush made people vote Democrat. But I don't think that's what you mean here.
And I think Obama would be far worse than Bush, too.
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No, what I mean is that Carter was the wrong man for the job and harmed the country greatly, but Bush has done far more harm. Driving voters from one corporate-sponsored party to the other isn't something I care one whit about. The only difference between the Democrats and Republicans is which corporations they are owned by, and which of our rights should be taken away first.
It's too bad the Constitution Party had to nominate a religious nut, and I say that as a Christian. This is a secular country, and I n
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No, what I mean is that Carter was the wrong man for the job and harmed the country greatly, but Bush has done far more harm.
I can't see how.
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Under Carter's watch Iran kidnapped a few Americans.
Under Bush's watch Osama Bin Laden sucessfully attacked the country and killed thousands.
Under Carter we had an OPEC problem, gasoline prices went up 25%.
Under Bush, an oil man, gasoline prices went up 400% (now down to 300% of what it was when he took offoce).
Under Bush we rightfully invaded Afghanistan, who held Bin Laden. That's a plus, maybe the only good thing he did for the country. But I would argue it shouldn't have been necessary, if the executive
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OK, I am going to ignore all of your points that do not actually back up your assertion that Bush is worse than Carter, because you cannot show that Bush is at fault for the things you mention.
So I won't bother with your implication that Bush was to blame for 9/11 or gas prices.
Under Bush we invaded Iraq. WMDs? Even if they had WMDs, so does N. Korea, China, Russia, Paklistan, adn a whole slew of other countries.
Despite your misunderstanding of our reason for invading -- quite clearly, the mere existence of WMD was NEVER the main reason for the invasion -- I can accept you think this was a bad thing.
We're in Iraq, I believe, for two reasons: because Saddam Hussein threatened Bush's dad, and to destabilize the region so oil prices would go up.
And I believe you're spouting gibberish.
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Now, wait a minute...
So I won't bother with your implication that Bush was to blame for 9/11 or gas prices
I didn't say anything about blame; Osama Bin Laden is to blame for 9-11. It just happened on Bush's watch. As head of the executive branch it's his job to ensure that things like that don't happen, just as it was Clinton's job to ensure that Oklahoma City didn't happen. They both failed.
And I believe you're spouting gibberish. Increasing oil prices hurts Republicans
I believe that Bush doesn't care any m
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I didn't say anything about blame; Osama Bin Laden is to blame for 9-11. It just happened on Bush's watch. As head of the executive branch it's his job to ensure that things like that don't happen
I didn't imply you said he CAUSED it, but yes, you ARE assigning blame: you said he failed to prevent it. How is that not assigning blame? And I call it bullshit.
I believe that Bush doesn't care any more about the Republican party than he does about his country.
Since he obviously cares deeply about both, I once again assert you're spouting pure gibberish.
And what were those reasons again?
I frankly don't feel like wasting my time telling you what everyone should by this point already know. That you think it was about Bush's dad shows you really don't care to learn anyway.
I believe you mean the surplus was wiped out by 911.
Plus the recession, yes.
I think you are incorrect but I'm too lazy to google it.
I'm not.
I think the Iraq war wiped out the surplus.
Not even close. We had a $150b de
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How is that not assigning blame?
If your employee makes a mistake, it is not YOUR fault; you are not to blame. But as he's your employee, you're still responsible for his mistake. The employee is to blame (in the case of 9-11 as I said, Bin Laden is the one to blame), but you are responsible for your employees. Bush wasn't to BLAME for 9-11, but he failed in his responsibility to prevent it, like Clinton failed to prevent the OK city bombings with its blue eyed terrorist.
I don't see why.
I'll agree that there
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Bush wasn't to BLAME for 9-11, but he failed in his responsibility to prevent it, like Clinton failed to prevent the OK city bombings with its blue eyed terrorist.
I see no evidence that anyone elected in 2000 would have prevented it from happening. It was the result of policies and events already happening beforehand. Saying this makes Bush worse than Carter makes no sense to me.
Even if Bush had implemented Clarke's policies immediately (which Clinton never implemented at all, and Bush was in the process of implementing), we have no reason to think it would have prevented the attack.
But I've been a longtime foe of any asset forfeture, unless and until a court of law has determined that the assets were gained by unlawful activity.
Where it is of overseas known terrorist organizations, I am a longtime proponent.
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I see no evidence that anyone elected in 2000 would have prevented it from happening.
Not our elected official, but appointed ones. Several months after 9-11 it came out that more than one FBI agent warned his superiors that something like that was going to happen (he'd been following one of the hijackers), but he thought they were going to either crash the planes or hold them ransom.
Their superiors ignored thsir warnings. Had the superiors acted it is possible, even likely, that the plot would have been thw
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One air marshall armed with tasers on every flight would stop any hijacking. I don't see how it would be innefectual.
Two passengers without a taser would stop the same hijacking.
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That's assuming you have brave passengers. It actually happened on that one 9-11 airplane. I just don't see another American plane ever getting hijacked again after 9-11.
Exactly, so why do you want air marshals on every plane?
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Because you can't count on unarmed passengers to disarm an armed man. Yes, it can happen and and has happened, but you can't count on it.
In this day and age, yes, you can. Absolutely.
Oh, come now... (Score:2)
Stone is an artist. You can't question the vision of the artist. </sarcasm>
People quite happily believe things that seem to be true. It's much easier than figuring out what is true. Particularly these days, when it's so easy to set up a plausible web page.
And there's a perfectly good English word for the concept of "truthiness": verisimilitude [yourdictionary.com]. It's not hip, though. I assume that you used it to make a point. But the word annoys me no end. :-)
Stone says 'W' is non-partisan (Score:2)
It's actually rather startling to see someone lie with a straight face like that.
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If you mean during thr Colbert interview, I think he was joking through the whole thing.
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It's actually rather startling to see someone lie with a straight face like that.
I see you don't watch the candidates' TV ads...
Entertainment (Score:2)