From Bryan Preston:
This is where we are in the defense of civilization right now–fighting off actual terrorists slaughtering innocents for Islam and Western intellectual terrorists who just can’t stand the thought of a Republican is president. So they wish him dead.
Writes Allah:
[…] the real “tell†in this movie is […] not the assassination itself, which doubtless is standard nutroots fantasy fare, but the fact that a Syrian man supposedly ends up being framed for it. It’s Truther allegory. Five will get you ten that the film ends with the Syrian guy in the electric chair, telling the executioner, “Let’s roll.â€Â
On the plus side though, this alt-history scenario leaves open the titillating possibility that perhaps OJ is the real killer.
Which, you have to admit, would be a kind of artistic tour de force.
Michelle Malkin has a bit of background on this Kill Bush subculture here.
My own thoughts are these: I don’t, as a general rule, have a problem with this kind of artistic exploration of one’s ideological wish fulfillment; in fact, I believe it possible that some truly provocative material can be born from such an impulse, as many of the great paranoid thrillers from late 60s and 70s cinema will attest (think Costa Gavras’ Z on through The Parallax View and Three Days of the Condor and Winter Kills).
But I do have a problem with the timing. Which is to say, were this project more about art than about politics, buzz, and meanspirited celluloidal masturbation, it certainly could have waited until Bush was safely out of office to make its conspiratorial case. That the writer and director chose now to make expose their fantasies (such as they are) will almost certainly guarantee them a lot of publicity, but it will likewise distract and (necessarily, in my opinion) detract from whatever insights they were hoping open-minded people might draw from the piece.
No, this is very likely a bit of slapdash fodder designed to exploit the BDS crowd, and as such, it strikes me as cynicism trying to pass itself off as “art.” Let the feverish lefties lap up such unpasteurized agitprop. Hopefully it’ll give ‘em a fine case of the Bangs.
****
update: more here, here and here. See also, Rick Moran.
So if it wasn’t the Syrian dude, who was it?
My money’s on Rove. But it could have been Ken Lay, Katherine Harris or the Bush daughters. Tough to figure it out without seeing the movie – and I won’t see it.
Yeah, Malkin has her usual crap up. The piece before that is a hysterical attack on any airliner that would dare to allow a passenger to take a GPS unit on an airplane. How much more chickenshit bullshit do we need? A GPS unit cannot blow up an airplane or overpower a crew. At best it might be used by terrorists to navigate if they gained control of the aircraft but airliners are already equipped with navigation instruments galore including GPS!
I think the right blogosphere should stop linking to her. She is an idiot.
This, ultimately marks the difference between moonbats and normal people. You don’t see conservatives talking about Clinton or Carter in such a dehumanizing manner. Conservatives don’t wish tragedy on their families.
This is a fifth-column, plain and simple.
noah
Even if I were to concede the “malkin is an idiot”…what has that got to do with her “assassination chic” post? Are you discounting the message because you can’t stand the messenger?
Anyone ever recall the “art” demanding the assassination of Clinton? Carter?
Added to my roundup at Old War Dogss >> Bill’s 2006.08.31 Short Shorts (Updated throughout the day)
I don’t mind a bit of political provocation myself, but this is transparently demented.
I can’t wait for the sequel – the one where President Cheney orders the SS to track down the makers of a scurrilous propaganda film and feed them into a wood chipper feet-first…
Threat? What threat? Get a life, you jerks.
SB: high
c’est la vie
Yo Bill Faith and Old War Dogs…
Trackbacks… check ‘em out.. they’re yummy!
Just stop and think about the bravery of these auteurs.
Bravery.
JEFF QUESTIONS THE TIMING!!!
Actually, I assume there will have to be some truly bizzare contortions involved here if the Syrian is framed. Normally, the arts and crafts like to blame racist right-wingers, but since the victim here is Chimpy McHitlerBurton, that wouldn’t make much sense… Unless it’s Shotgun Dick going for the coup. The Left certainly won’t make one of their own BDS sufferers the killer. Jeff’s suggestion of OJ is more likely than that. Or perhaps they will go the LaRouche route and blame the Queen.
Hmmm.
Why the hell does Bush put up with this?
Were I President I’d have the Secret Service escort the fucker responsible to Guantanamo with the words:
“Here’s your sequel asshole. Cya in a few years.”
I wish I had thought of it first. Not because I hate the president – I don’t – but because it is a guaranteed moneymaker.
It’s the only real political satisfaction my lefty friends will get this year. It can’t lose, and I’d delight in taking their money.
Just stop and think of the courage of these moviemakers.
Courage.
The outrage and condemnation from their peers will be deafening.
I’m already excited for the sequel: Death of a President 2: Electric Boogaloo.
Darleen, granted it was off topic but Malkin really irritates with her macho Bush bashing as if that improves her street creds. She fell for the MSM line on Katrina hook, line, and sinker and never took back a word. I agree with most of what she says but she really irritates me with her humorless self-righteousness.
Now if she would throw in a few stories about dancing armadillos and Jose Cuervo that might change!
Jeff is going to lose his PJ Media card if he’s found out to be questioning the timing! Only liberals do that and when they do it they are known (KNOWN, I say) to be out of ammo/full of shit/helping the terrorists.
Darn you MarkD! You hit the bullseye before I could even aim…
This is a simple effort to extract cash from a niche audience. And it will probably succeed. Previous example? Just think “Michael Moore”.
It’s the only real political satisfaction my lefty friends will get this year. It can’t lose, and I’d delight in taking their money.
That reminds me of the article the “Your Band Sucks” guy at somethingawful wrote about System of a Down. Yeah, all these teenagers and leftists might think they’re being edgy and rebellious listening to SOAD, but ultimately, they’re giving money to fatcat studio execs that inevitably vote Republican.
The logic is so cynically hilarious that it wouldn’t suprise me if Serj and Daren have a secret vault of archived copies of National Review and a shrine to Reagan that they keep hidden from Rolling Stone so their poser fans keep buying their CDs and downloading their shit off itunes.
tw: Otherwise, the “brave dissent” image falls short
Why would anyone want to watch anything about Bush once he is out of office? Who would care?
Which is exactly the point: free publicity. Yes it’s craven and sensationalistic, but that’s capitalism (and this guy Range is a business man. Anyone who has made 4 films is at least as much a businessman as an artist.) I’ve nothing against capitalism, I just think it’s funny when people on the right complain about it’s seamy side. Next you’ll be complaining about large breasted girls in beer commercials. It’s a slippery slope, 1st amendment issue.
(Side note: You’ve played right into their strategy by linking to stories about it. There is no real political newsworthiness to this story.)
Sorry if this sounds harsh. Didn’t mean it to be.
OJ the real killer? Okay, Jeff, now we know you’ve had too much NyQuil.
TW: An’ that’s a fact, Jack.
(Benedick – thanks, that one made me LOL.)
Well boot marching the filmmakers to club Gitmo may be satisfying, but does run afoul of that pesky amendment. However, there is most certainly a difference between buxom babes and a docudrama of the killing of a sitting president. I’m not going to be calling for blood, but I’m still going to crow that (regardless of marketing value) it’s highly inappropriate to run something like this while said leader sits in the office.
Friggin’ Canadians!
Yeah? Well, what about Ann Coulter?!
The prancing ninnies over at Ace’s site are pitching a fit about how she’s costing us all valuable independent voters and basically tarnishing our sterling image with Left wing thinkers with her caustic commentary. The horror!
Can’t you see? Because of Ann, we all look just like Michael Moore to the undecided voters! Stop the madness, Ann!
How many movies about actual Presidents have been made? How many of them have come out while the President they portray is still in office?
I know of one, right offhand: Farenheit 9/11. And the actual President played the part. What other Presidential movies are there that came out during the Administration they depict? Does “All the President’s Men” ring a bell?
But I do have a problem with the timing.
I see your question of the timing, and I raise you a rovian conspiracy motivated by the jews.
Movies like this put the seed into semi-crazed heads. All they need is something to put them over the edge –
Like being crushed in an election they were sure they were going to win.
Or….
Seeing the guy who stole their renovated house for pennies on the dollar (and made them bark like a dog) hoist his son onto a new pony bought with excess mortgage money.
Pablo:
Clinton and Primary Colors
Andrew:
Are you really suggesting that anyone who believes in capitalism loses the right to outrage or disgust at something that is being promoted for the sake of making a buck?
By your “logic,” a businessman who makes money off kiddie-porn is insulated from conservative/capitalist criticism because he’s simply in it for the money?
Puh-leeze.
Bet you’d be first to be outraged if liberals were told that they had no right to being outraged over massive slaughters b/c their heroes, after all, were Pol Pot and Unka Joe.
Or, they’d have no reason to be ticked off at being the victims of crime, because, after all, they’re opposed to gun ownership, so whatever they get they deserve?
Techie:
Nope. It’s purportedly based on the Clintons. There is no President William J. Clinton in the film.
Also, Nixon resigned in 1974. All The President’s Men came out in 1976, during the Ford Administration.
Has anyone actually SEEN the movie? I don’t like to condemn something before experiencing what it’s about.
Is there any info on who provided the financing for this project?
I agree!
Ann, TEAR DOWN THIS RESTRAINING ORDER!
tw: need help with my social graces
I find it especially disturbing that this “fictional?” assassination is set for a near-future date, rather than a date in the past. This inevitably causes one to consider–nay, dream–that perhaps there is yet time to make history.
[Dramatic music rises to crescendo, then fades, fades, fades away GUNSHOT! SCREAMS! LIBERATED DISSENTERS’ HECKLING! Cut to commercial for the Daily Show.]
Does Canada bring anything worthwhile to the table? I can not think of anything. Cars-no hitech-no. anyone? anything?
Is it any good?
I’m only in favor of banning stuff that really stinks. Like Havana, GIGLI, and Tom Green.
Lou – Canada gives us those lovely Alberta Clippers all winter. Yannow, with freezing winds and snow.
MCPO,
My bad forgot about those.
I am so tired of all this crap.
Let’s just let it all go the way they want it.
I’ll be one of the first to die in the new order, but the cycle will end with all of them dead as well. They will be shocked and disillusioned; I will merely be affirmed.
Now just wait a second. You’re assuming the killer comes off looking like a bad guy. Remember, he killed Chimpy McHitlerburton, which makes him a hero.
My money’s on the killer being Che Guevara, back from the grave and not takin’ no shit no more.
It’ll be a franchise, I tells ya.
Hmmm.
Well. The only thing left is a Bush porno film.
…
I don’t know whether to consider producing that film, to make money, or throw up at the thought of Bush naked …
sw: growth. Ok now we’re going a little too far!
I’m sure I’m the only one here who thinks killing politicians is a worthy avocation, but I find wishing into the air for someone else to do it for you (which his audience is doingâ€â€that’s the ritual they’re buying, a cowardly raindance for a bulletâ€â€whether the artist himself wants them to or not [intentionalism debate goes here]) perfectly contemptibleâ€â€immoral, even. And I think both these things for the same reasons.
OMG I feel so nuanced.
No.
Lou—Passable beer. And they used Andrea Dworkin’s own law to ban her own books, so some of them have a bit of a sense of humor. But Gordon Lightfoot kinda cancels that out. The rest of it’s pretty much Terrence and Phillip…
On this particular note, I refer to the recent
iteration of parallax politics; the season finale
of the “Dead Zone”. Entitled “Hunting Party”,
which they assure us, was written before the
great quail hunt of Spring 2006, a seeming Cheney
manque, is assassinated by a shadowy paramilitary
clique, tied to pre-9/11 Afghanistan, frame a chronic BDS sufferer as a patsy, in order to allow the clearly demonic, evangelical demagogue Greg Stilson to take the second seat, on the way to provoking a nuclear Armageddon. (which they
seem to peg around 2015).
Suppose it were the 60’s: How would you feel about calls to assassinate Martin Luther King? Or the 80’s and Salman Rushdie, or only a few years ago and Pym Fortuyn?
I am not nearly as relaxed as you are about “artistic” explorations of fascistic fantasies.
No thank you.
Heck of a lot of trade with us, awesome hockey and the Canadian Army (God love ‘em they ain’t big, they ain’t the best equipped – but they are good troops and they are helping us rather alot in Afghanistan). Oh, and the CFL is fun to watch on late-night ESPN2 or such.
Noah,
Or it could be used as a timer, you living anal infarction. Does your stupidity come naturally or do you have to work on it?
Any wristwatch can also be used as a timer…　Also does making a movie about the assassination of a president really equate to calling for or advocating(it would seem to me it depends entirely on how it’s presented.).
On the subject of assassination though, one thing is clear. Some brave soul must strap on a vest loaded with poison doughnuts and approach Micheal Moore. It will be a hideous death, I know, but you would be fondly remembered…
Hel-lo, softwood lumber? (That is, relatively cheap housing materials.) And, as Major John notes, the great and good Canadian Forces (who are finally getting some funds and equipment with the new Conservative government).
You know, “Three Days of the Condor” kinda sucked, the chick was cute but Redford doesn’t do panicked and freaked out like say, Wil Smith did later. I liked “The President’s Plane is Missing” there’s a good one. Meh on the movie, but I must have read that book a million times in junior high.
TW: thing. Even better paranoia right there.
Man, some of the comments here don’t even come close to “getting it” imo.
How’s about we just replace Bush’s ‘character’ with any one of you in a movie of that nature.
Perhaps “Death of Jeff.” or “…Chris” or “…Andrew” or “…Noah” or…
If a movie were to have a character that is supposed to be myself (and if I weren’t dead yet – some folks do debate the point, depending on whether it’s Saturday afternoon or Saturday night), I’d be more than a little concerned that someone was actually trying to get me killed, or at least suggest to some crazy fuck that I should be killed, with prejudice and malice aforethought.
My choice would be to toughen my personal security measures…or I’d have decide to go hunting. Maybe both. It’s called self-defense.
Personally, were it Kerry, Clinton or Bush, or one of you who were threatened in such a way, I would be greatly concerned. Just as I was concerned for the safety of Jeff and his family over the Frisch affair.
In case of total warfare (ala General Sherman, Mao, etc.) however, all bets are off. Ya lays down yer nickel and ya takes yer chances.
At this point in time, it is not a case of total warfare and this movie offers an open threat to a man’s life, like him or not.
What forms of life are you people, anyway? You’re certainly not human.
Don’t you question my patriotism!
Feeling sort of good today, during the dark of night some sort of “living anal infarction” questioned my reasoning powers on the grounds that I did not note that a GPS unit could be used as a timer!!! Yep, so can cell phones, most radios, many cd players, etc. BUT WE MUST BAN GPS!!!!!
“adamthemad” is probably a sock-puppet for the vacuous Michelle Malkin!
Actually I am thinking about purchasing a portable GPS unit from Garmin. Said unit in the hands of a passenger on the recently crashed Comair flight might well have noted that they were lined up to take off on the wrong runway!
What, no one’s going to mention Alan Thicke?
Does Canada bring anything worthwhile to the table?
Pamela Anderson-Lee-Rock
Pam Anderson is Canadian. Granted, her best features were manufactured and installed in the U.S., so…kind of a wash there.
“Why would anyone want to watch anything about Bush once he is out of office? Who would care?”
Actually, I think Vivid or Wicked or some of the other studios are really missing out on the opportunity to create some Art centered around Clinton’s Oval Office.
TW: “forward” and back and forward and back and ooh baby….
Oh, Christ…
What forms of life are you people, anyway? You’re certainly not human.
Is that supposed to be some sort of insult? Noting the possibility of a cynical attempt to confirm just how deranged the left is in regards to Bush’s health isn’t some sort of nefarious hatred of the man. In case you haven’t noticed, Bush (and past presidents going back generations) deals with these kind of threats on a daily basis, and has the staff to handle them. Randi Rhodes punctuates her rants against Bush with audio of a shotgun blast, and no one has dragged her off to Guantanamo yet. Nothing the left does shocks me anymore, so why shouldn’t I take this snuff film as nothing more than a delusional fantasy or ironic attempt to laugh at the predictable leftist reaction?
Your “what if it was you?” logic is equally laughable, because it presumes some sort of emotional paralysis if this was directed at any of us. I could crack my skull open falling down the stairs, or be killed by a drunk driver. I’m in the military, and live with the knowledge that I could die in combat. Do you honestly think that death is some sort of thing I live in fear of? Sorry, I have better things to do and enough common sense to know how to handle the sort of tu quoque nonsense you are asserting. Try selling your faux outrage to kindergartners, I hear they are easily spooked.
Actually, Chris, I spent some time in the military myself. I became so used to working at night that the habit has never left me.
Not to mention the fact that you seem to have entirely missed my point. Freedom of speech is one thing. Using that freedom to write a composition or to film propaganda that encourages people to kill a sitting president during a time of war is another.
As you claim to be an active duty member of America’s armed forces, blowing off a threat to your Commander-in-Chief is a bit…disconcerting.
We do not live in fear, but we must recognize the threat and deal with it accordingly. Anything less is taking a chance that someone will be killed. Over the last several years a number of individual active duty soldiers, sailors and Marines have been attacked on our very soil by such men as those who have made this film. For self-preservation’s sake, you would do well to recognize the threat that such films might be to you. It will only encourage more such violence upon you and your men. If you are not taking precautions, nor concerned about the safety of others, you, sir, are a fool.
As for me, my outrage began with Mr. Carter’s Tehran fiasco and was re-inforced when a few friends died in some place in Lebanon…in their sleep…and they weren’t the first or the last.
I seem to remember that no one took the threat seriously then, either…nor were they outraged…
This war is being fought on multiple fronts, and films such as this one represent one of those fronts.