W.

I saw Oliver Stone’s W. last night. For the moment, I’ll just say that it is a terrible movie which I would strongly recommend you spare yourself the expense and unpleasantness of seeing in a theater. The legions of reviewers saying that Stone is being so fair to George W. Bush are appallingly off-base and reveal their unconscious liberal bigotry. True, Stone does not present Bush as evil. He doesn’t say that Bush lied about the WMDs. But he presents Bush as a desperately insecure, fearful, jittery, charmless, constantly talking-with-his-mouth-full, stumbling, pathetic, contemptible, almost subhuman incompetent and loser. Not only does Stone entirely miss Bush’s most aggravating quality, which is his arrogant certitude, since that wouldn’t fit with Stone’s portrayal of Bush as desperately insecure, but Stone also eliminates Bush’s good qualities—his charm, his warmth, his sense of humor, his good looks, his empathy, his ability to win people over, all the things that helped make him a success in life and in politics, with millions of fanatically devoted supporters. The movie is thus an idiotic and hateful caricature. And I say that as someone who has been as anti-Bush (this side insanity) as anyone in America.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at October 18, 2008 10:09 AM | Send