THUS Magazine

George W Bush comes off lightly in the new biopic, ‘W’ to the dismay of pinko liberals everywhere. Oliver Stone was scripted to serve up a tale of a neocon Golem, spoiled rich son of a former CIA Director turned one-term President whose legacy was that he did not annex Iraq.  He fixed the polls in Florida in 2000 and stole the Presidency from St. Al Gore. A draft-avoider himself, he smeared John Kerry’s Vietnam war record in the 2004 contest. He played golf when the New Orleans levees broke and thousands died and were displaced. He enshrined torture in the constitution, shackled liberty with the Patriot Act, castrated the UN, diplomatically coughed when Israel trashed the Lebanon, Russia rampaged through Chechnya and serial atrocities killed millions in Africa. He elevated the US trade deficit to record levels, cut public spending while lowering taxes for the very rich. He nixed Kyoto, sent global energy prices sky high while making oil, transport and armaments corporations immensely wealthier by blowing Iraq to pieces, killing tens of thousands of civilians in a country with no prior record of Al Qaeda militancy and no weapons of mass destruction.

He did what pappie should have done to win a second term, but in eight years, he made America the world’s most hated nation.

So why don’t we hate George W Bush even more after this movie? At least the Iraqis got to watch mobile phone videos of Saddam’s long drop. All we got was a thoughtful portrait of a likable if somewhat self-centred guy who only wanted to make win his father’s approval.

One reason is that is that ‘W’ is not a political documentary. Another is that one man was not responsible for the collective insanity of US foreign policy over the past decade. It took a dedicated team of mountebanks scheming round the clock, a hideous, spectacular act of terrorism, a suspension of disbelief, creeping totalitarianism and the absence of credible opposition to serve up such a witches’ brew. By painting a credible picture of a man of instinctive populist genius, born-again conviction but no interest in the wider welfare of the world outside America, ‘W’ fillets and indicts the Bush administration far more subtly than a spit-flecked Michael Moore attack. In any event, that movie – Team America, World Police – has already been made.

If we take time out from hating, we learn all the above during the course of this thoughtful exposure of hubris and the Peter Principle. George W. took the temperature of the nation and gave the majority what they wanted at the time: Shock and Awe. His End-of-Empire antics were not dissimilar to those of any over-reaching dictator, except that they were enacted in a seemingly genuine belief that he was empowering democracy. He acted in the god-given belief that America First was best for the world. Stone’s ‘W’ is not stupid, but he’s no Einstein; no choirboy but not deliberately malicious. He gambled, high stakes, Texas Hold’em. Fate bit back. 

His advisors are another matter. Cheney is portrayed as a recidivist cold warrior, a consummate Iago, bent on total world domination. Rumsfeld is a lizard, prosecuting war on a strategy borrowed from WalMart. Colin Powell is the Imperial general whose loyalty to his commander in chief overrides professional misgivings. Condi Rice graduates from intellectual doubter to malicious Tinkerbell, spinning scenarios to fit the desired outcomes. General Tommy Franks is Paton. Carl Rove is Gollum.

‘W’ the movie resonates deeper because it does not preach nor condemn. Hitler was a failed painter. George W wanted to be a baseball hero. Both liked dogs. Both stepped up to the plate when the nation demanded vengeance for real and perceived ills. Both caused epic misery by aggressive, unprovoked warfare. One of them will be rehabilitated. It wasn’t America’s fault that they whacked the wrong guys. God told George to do it. He’s comfortable with that.