** slight hijack**
If GWB is. and most people seem to think so, the worst prez you’ve ever had, why hasn’t he been impeached.
I mean, if we had a complete and utter tosser as PM he’d have been out on his fucking ear yonks ago, Brenda would have seen to that…I think
I thought the Germans were expecting a long-awaited sequel to M.
It takes a lot of members of the House of Representatives willing to do it, to impeach a President. For most of his time in office GWB enjoyed the advantage of a party majority in both houses of Congress.
In fact, for years after 9/11, he essentially had a rubber-stamp Congress (and a Fourth Estate that seemed to be asleep on the job). There were even people saying absurd stuff like “The job of Congress is to support the President” or “In a time of crisis/attack/neverending war, the country must pull together and not question the President.” (In other words, once a President’s in office, all he has to do is get us into a war, and he becomes an unquestionable dictator. Sounds insane, but that’s what it boils down to.)
In 2004 Democrats got back a majority in the House and (sorta) in the Senate – but with GWB’s second term winding down, few have the stones to take the political risks involved in commencing impeachment. Heck, I’d be happy if they’d just investigate war profiteering.
Because impeachment would also require strong support of Republican congressmen, most of whom have been unwaveringly supportive of Bush. It is only in the latter half of this year that the Republican side has smelled blood in the water and started to tentatively disapprove of Bush out of self-reelection-preservation. Congressional demographic opinions were not the target of these polls.
Yeah, that was cringe inducing.
Also it was in the film! I have no idea why I’m putting this in spoilers by the way, but I am.
The movie’s played with a bit of wink to the audience at how much we know in 2008 that Bush and Co. didn’t know going back anywhere from 2006 to the first flashback in 1966. You’d almost feel sorry for them because, from the perspective of the film, the choices these people made at the time seemed somewhat reasonable given the information that’s presented to us. I know the right won’t believe it, but it really tries to present Bush in a sympathetic light. Even his “come to Jesus” scene was played as straight as one possibly can, given the material.
Unlike a PM, who can be dumped simply because no one likes him or her anymore, a President needs to be convicted of an actual crime (treason, bribery, or “high crimes and misdemeanors”) before he or she can be removed.
Being a tosser, even a complete and utter one, is not a criminal act.
No he doesn’t. It’s pretty well established that, in impeachment jargon, “high crimes and misdemeanors” are whatever Congress says they are.
No one else fears blowback and people voting Rep because of the godless Hollywood types who made this movie? I do.
I think the film would be fine–after the election. Why does it have to open before? My nerves are shot, I tell ya.
Judging from the film trailers, while in the White House it wasn’t that W. was in control or not in control - W. was literally out of control.
Not necessarily convicted as the Clinton impeachment makes clear but those are the grounds.
Unfortunately Bush got his ducks in a row before he started dancing on the line of legality. So unlike Clinton who blatantly committed a felony in office and got impeached Bush has his bases covered and makes sure everyone knows it in advance.
Personally I think if someone was willing to put in the effort an impeachment could stick but the partisanship in Washington meant that the Republicans would block efforts despite the fact that he’s not even popular with them. With three months to go and an economic crisis going on it’s not even worth the effort to try.
Besides, does anyone think President Chaney would be an improvement?
I saw this last night and I can back up what Enderw24 says, pretty much. I don’t know that it’s a great movie, but it’s a good one, if a bit cringe-inducing at times. A lot of conservatives are going to be very surprised that it’s not at all a hatchet job. A lot of liberals are going to be very upset that it’s not at all a hatchet job. It does actually portray W in a sympathetic light and it doesn’t even portray the people around him as eeeevil, not even Rove. Cheney probably comes off worse than anyone, but even he isn’t portrayed anywhere near as bad as you might expect. I almost didn’t want to see it because I too loathe Bush and everyone around him (including mom, poppy, Laura, and the VORTGI Powell) but I ended up liking Brolin/Stone’s Bush. I ended up really liking Cromwell/Stone’s Poppy and practically adoring Laura. Even the ice queen Barbara comes off sympathetic and even warm at times.
I was very confused by this movie, which I assume is what Stone intended. The “reality” of Bush and his cohorts don’t fit the cinematic, and I still hate the reality, but quite liked the cinematic. I haven’t seen most of Stone’s big films. I’ve only seen Wall Street, Talk Radio, The Doors, Natural Born Killers, and Alexander, so I can’t compare this with movies like JFK or Nixon. Obviously it’s not accurate regarding intimate conversations, but the timeline is accurate. Stone skips over really important events (like 9/11 and Afghanistan) and only barely touches on scandals that could take up entire movies (too many to mention).
If this were made by anyone other than Oliver Stone, conservatives would be falling all over themselves praising it, but the Stone name will keep them away and snarking on a movie that they’d probably really like.
Oh, and, it’s not a comedy or a satire. There are humorous moments (such as shown in the trailer) but for the most part it’s a serious movie. I think. Maybe I got whooshed in a way that my midnight movie brain didn’t catch. I’ll have to think about it some more.
I don’t understand why this movie was made before GWB is even out of office. I imagine that once he is, there will be people saying things about him that could enhance the film.
In any case, to say “no one is going to see it” is, I think, an exaggeration. A lot of people who haven’t read any of the biographic info about Bush will want to see it. To me, Bush’s personal life is not as important or interesting as the ramifications of his political activities. In that regard, Bush as a private person is kind of boring compared to Nixon.
Rats!
I left work this afternoon with plans to catch the 4:00 show. Three miles of bumper-to-bumper traffic killed thatidea. Now I’ll have to wait until Monday.
From the reviews/comments I’ve read, Stone didn’t craft a blatant hit piece–good for him. It seems the take on his story is broad enough–and the actors good enough–to tell the “true” story and have some fun with it at the same time.
I keep seeing that picture of Brolin as Bush with “Marvin” sitting next to him in the cab of a truck…that guy looks like he could be McConaughey’s younger brother.
I saw this tonight and thought it was good, not great. There were some good funny moments (it’s a kind of a greatest hits compilation of Bush gaffes), and there were a couple of good serious moments – Dreyfus as Cheney outlining the real reasons for the Iraq invasion, W getting pissed when he finds out there aren’t going to be any WMD’s. I loved the scene where after W gets beaten in his first bid for Congress by a Dem who paints Bush as a carpetbagger and a bad Christian, he vows that he will “never get out-Texased or out-Christianed again.” He never did.
The relationship between he and Laura was also fairly warm and respectful. I think that Bush supporters might be interested to know that the movie does not mock Bush’s Christianity. Stone basically depicts it as sincere, and as a transformative good in W’s life.
The movie is not a hatchet job on Bush, and though he’s not portrayed as a genius, he is portrayed as someone who wants to do good and is not corrupt or malicious. Cheney, Rummy and Wolfowitz come off as the real villains who manipulate Bush and exploit his naivete and good intentions. If Bush supporters go to see it (which I know they won’t), I think they’d be surprised at how sympathetic and fair and really kind of soft it is.
As I said, I think it felt incomplete, though. There’s a lot of stuff that gets glossed over or left out – nothing about Bush’s National Guard days, very little about his governorship, nothing about Abu Ghraib, or Plamegate, or wiretapping or any number of other scandals. Nothing about Bush V Gore. Most conspicuously, there is no onscreen treatment of 9/11. It’s mentioned only vaguely after the fact.
I think what was there was good, but that there could have been a lot more. I think this could have worked very well indeed in a longer form format like a mini-series.
Josh Brolin is terrific, by the way.
I think you might be surprised at how little revision or distortion exists in this movie. It’s not agenda driven.
Overheard while leaving the theater, as uttered by a very kindly looking elderly couple:
Wife: Well, that was a sorry, sorry movie.
Husband: Yep, it was. I thought it was going to be a comedy.
Wife: So did I.
(pause)
Wife: At least they showed how much of a drunk he was.
-FrL-
(As for comedic moments, I laughed (for some reason louder than anyone else in the theater) at (super ultra mild spoiler, not really a spoiler at all):
“I told you I can take criticism. I’m already over it.” Said in a completely charmingly cute tone after having purposely crashed his car into the garage in anger over what Laura had just said.
What were they (in the movie anyway)?
The obvious. Oil. Cheney is shown giving a multi-media presentation showing how much oil is left in the world, how much is used by the US, and how the richest reserves are in Iraq and Iran.
Basically, he gives the well-known neocon argument for using Iraq as a base to go into the real target, Iran, then starts waxing poetically about a literal “empire.” At the end of his presentation when Colin Powell (who is portrayed as the only consistent voice of reason and dissent within the Bush inner circle) asks him “So what is our exit strategy,” Cheney says “There is no exit. We stay.”
This all comes after Cheney has been pitching one bullshit line after another about how dangerous both Iraq and Iran are. He finally just drops the pretense and admits it’s all about oil.
I like Oliver Stone’s movies, and I enjoy politics, but I thought this movie was only so-so.
I suppose it’s tough to decide what to cover when your subject has such a wide breadth of material to offer, but I felt that the movie suffered by its lack of focus. Do you make it a straight biopic, going from childhood to adulthood? Or do you make it a Presidential story, focusing on the trials and tribulations of the last 8 years? I’m not certain of the answer, but this movie tried to dabble in both, which made it disjointed and, invariably, left out lots of material.
Adding to the misery was the sense that all of the supporting characters were just doing bad impressions of people in the news. Perhaps this is due to the fact that the events portrayed are so recent, but I couldn’t get past the fact that the actors seemed to be cast solely due to their resemblance to their real-life counterpart. The woman who played Condi Rice was especially jarring; her impression was pretty good, but seemed so over-the-top that I couldn’t get past it to believe that she was a real person.
I also thought that the central focus of the movie - W’s struggle for Poppy’s approval - was indulgent. Sure, we can all guess that W has daddy issues, but I’d rather that the movie not dig into that meme and just portray the events of W’s life without the attendant melodrama. Let us draw our own conclusions, instead of beating us over the head with the stupid baseball metaphor that was supposed to represent Bush’s need for validation.
I did think Brolin did a great job, though.
I saw it, and I give all the actors props, as most of them were doing impressions of the real people. James Cromwell as Senior was not doing an impression and Senior came off smelling like a rose. It certainly was not the hatchet job that W deserved, but it was a hatchet job. But it was a fair hatchet job. Everyone in the inner circle is portrayed as stupid and greedy and egotistical except Colin Powell. Condoleeza Rice is portrayed with special viciousness as truly stupid and vain. Rumsfeld is portrayed as senile and lusting for war.
W is portrayed as an ambitious recovering alcoholic who is in way over his head.
Rove came off as a human being, and not the dog crap that gets wiped off your shoe, which is what he really is.
I’m going to vote no on recommending it to others.