Politics Death of a President
Conservatives were losing their shit that “Death of a President,” a fictional documentary about the assassination of George W. Bush, was made at all. Now that the film has a distribution deal, the pace of shit losing has picked up considerably.
But I wonder if conservatives have read anything about the film? Unlike “The Path to 9/11,” which falsified actual events while claiming to be a factual account (and libeled and defamed actual people), “Death of a President” is an entirely fictional meditation on the consequences of Bush being assassinated—and guess what? The consequences aren’t pretty. The lesson for even the most ardent Bush-haters would seem to be, uh, the world will be better off if Bush lives out his second term.
Says Variety:
Styled as a look back at Bush’s murder on Oct. 19, 2007, pic is similar in style to that of the many docs aired on cable in recent weeks examining the Sept. 11 attacks, with actors posing as interview subjects narrating over archival news footage, some doctored, such as the swearing in of Dick Cheney as the 44th president of the United States.Pic traces the hunt for the assassin and explains how the fictional President Cheney attempts to use the murder to invade Syria, ultimately settling for an expansion of law enforcement powers under the Patriot Act.
“Death of a President” prompted one historian to imagine even worse consequences for the world if Bush were assasinated. From the UK’s Daily Mail:
At home and abroad, the gloating over Bush’s death soon gave way to a sober realisation that he had actually been a check on Dick Cheney’s ruthless way of defending America from enemies at home or abroad.Executive orders authorising detention without trial of citizens as well as aliens suspected of ‘terrorist affiliations’ and closing America’s borders were signed off with astonishing alacrity, as were military plans to strike regimes that had celebrated Bush’s death.
Syria was attacked, but Iran bore the brunt. Mass strikes by bombers and cruise missiles knocked out any capacity Iran had for making modern weapons, let alone nuclear bombs, but at a huge price. A country of 70million cowered under the shadow of burning oil wells and the pollution from devastated petro-chemical plants.
Fighting Iran turned out to be much bloodier than the blitzkrieg against Saddam’s Iraq…. A grim war went on year after year in the lunar landscape which was much of Iran. As America struggled to find a replacement for the Ayatollahs’ regime, even the willing support of Iranian Ă©migrĂ©s from America wanting to wipe away the stain of the assassin’s crime could not build a stable pro-U.S. government in Tehran.
I am, of course, anti-assassination. That's because I am anti anyone getting killed, but also because then we'd have President Cheney - and I didn't need no British Movie to figure that one out.
Plus, we'd have all those corny tributes to Bush. Reagan's funeral was bad enough - that would be the most maudlin affair ever, and it would go on and on.
In fact, I'm praying that both George the Elder and Barbara continue to be in good health for many more years, and especially are not called home to Jesus while their spawn is still in control. That would be another descent into unnecessary national pathos.