The Dark Knight, reviewed. - By Dana Stevens - Slate Magazine
I found this little gem in this review of this summer's blockbuster:
Is the Bush administration supposed to "expose their identity" as the Joker wants Batman to do? Isn't the message of the film that there are really really evil people out there in the world, and in order to deal with them SOMEONE has to walk extremely close to the edge of evil but not fall over it? In the movie, DA Dent clearly fell over--bigtime, and I thought a bit much and a bit easily, but Batman is "still out there, still protecting"-at an extremely high cost to himself. Lost love, lost family, extreme life danger, lost friends, maybe even a lost Lucius Fox.
How HAS the Bush administration kept the US safe from attacks since 9-11? Part of it is certainly going on offense, but is that all of it? Unlike the Clinton administration that liked to crow about any little thing they did to maybe thwart terror, the Bush administration has been remarkably quiet. In intelligence, quiet is good, in politics, it is suicide, but Bush seems to have been very willing to pay that price.
While the Clinton motives were always crystal clear -- money, sex, power, adulation, the Bush motives are a lot less clear. One doesn't see a bunch of harried worries about "his legacy". The MSM is of course sure that they KNOW that legacy will be "worst president ever", but folks tend to forget that what follows is also important. Clinton presided over times that APPEARED to be quiet, but in retrospect were a period when the greatest post communist threat was building. Bush started dealing with that threat, and for some reason, if keeping the country safe is something people like, with very good results.
How well will BO do on that front? I think that result will have some bearing on how Bush is actually judged by history.
Oh, the Dark Knight is worth seeing. Very dark, but well acted, good effects.
I found this little gem in this review of this summer's blockbuster:
The long, intricately braided story that follows will include vast wiretapping networks, suicide-bomb threats, and moral clashes over torture and prisoners' rights. In short, Chris Nolan does more nuanced thinking about the war on terror than we've seen from the Bush administration in seven years. And despite a falsely heroic closing speech from Gary Oldman's character, police Lt. Jim Gordon, the movie seems to arrive at much the same conclusion about Batman as Americans have about Bush: Thanks to this guy, we're well and thoroughly screwed.
Is the Bush administration supposed to "expose their identity" as the Joker wants Batman to do? Isn't the message of the film that there are really really evil people out there in the world, and in order to deal with them SOMEONE has to walk extremely close to the edge of evil but not fall over it? In the movie, DA Dent clearly fell over--bigtime, and I thought a bit much and a bit easily, but Batman is "still out there, still protecting"-at an extremely high cost to himself. Lost love, lost family, extreme life danger, lost friends, maybe even a lost Lucius Fox.
How HAS the Bush administration kept the US safe from attacks since 9-11? Part of it is certainly going on offense, but is that all of it? Unlike the Clinton administration that liked to crow about any little thing they did to maybe thwart terror, the Bush administration has been remarkably quiet. In intelligence, quiet is good, in politics, it is suicide, but Bush seems to have been very willing to pay that price.
While the Clinton motives were always crystal clear -- money, sex, power, adulation, the Bush motives are a lot less clear. One doesn't see a bunch of harried worries about "his legacy". The MSM is of course sure that they KNOW that legacy will be "worst president ever", but folks tend to forget that what follows is also important. Clinton presided over times that APPEARED to be quiet, but in retrospect were a period when the greatest post communist threat was building. Bush started dealing with that threat, and for some reason, if keeping the country safe is something people like, with very good results.
How well will BO do on that front? I think that result will have some bearing on how Bush is actually judged by history.
Oh, the Dark Knight is worth seeing. Very dark, but well acted, good effects.
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