Stranger Than Fiction

I recently watched a movie called “Death of a President”, a “fictional documentary” about the assassination of George W. Bush in Chicago. It was REALLY well done, but obviously REALLY controversial. Critics claimed…

(a) it was in bad taste
(b) it would “inspire” copycat killers to assassinate GWB
(c) it was “un-American”

This reminded me of the bruhaha surrounding the original “Manchurian Candidate” (starring Frank Sinatra). Depending on who’s answering the question, the film was pulled from theatres before/after the JFK assassination because…

(a) it was deemed in bad taste
(b) it “inspired” Lee Harvey Oswald to assassinate JFK
(c) it was considered “un-American”

Actually one of the most plausible reasons it was pulled was that the studio was losing money on it, probably attributable to all of the above. Even in 1962 it’s doubtful that a Hollywood film studio would pull its product from the shelf because of an attack of conscience.

So, in other words, the truth was fictionalized and spun back to us.

Funny thing about truth, the expectation is that it’s to be believed coming from some mouths, but not others.

Anyway, back to “Death of a President” and the spinning thereof. One of its most vocal critics was Hilary Clinton who called it “despicable” although she hadn’t seen it. OK, I get it, no political figure will EVER endorse a film that portrays a political assassination, but here’s the point; it’s FICTION. If someone really plans on whacking Bush they don’t need a film to convince them. I doubt that a died-in-the-wool psycho killer is going to tell himself “I THINK I wanna do this but I’d better go see a movie first, just to be sure”.

That said, “Death of a President” definitely has a high “creepy” factor, and it’s a really uncomfortable film to watch. As much as I loathe GWB I don’t want the man dead, I just want him out of politics. Be that as it may however, one of the scariest aspects to consider is that once Bush is gone, VP Dick Cheney is in charge. Bush is just dumb, but Cheney is f***ing evil.