Frost, Nixon, Cheney and McNamara
Caught Frost/Nixon yesterday. It's the most entertaining film about the making of an interview that you're likely to see.* Yes, the interview is important, but director Ron Howard made the issues around funding, preparation and distribution as close to a suspense-filled story as is reasonably possible.
The key moment of the 1977 interview, and the key to this film, is Nixon's response to questions about Watergate. The only time he answered direct questions about Watergate, Nixon stated that he made mistakes, likely broke laws, tarnished the office of the President specifically and our system of democracy generally, but still believed that anything a President does to serve his country is legal.
I'm interested in seeing how the movie's portrayal stacks up to the real interviews, released on DVD earlier this month. I also want to check out Charlie Rose's interviews about the movie with Ron Howard and Frank Langella, the actor portraying Nixon in the dramatization.
Having just returned from watching the movie, I opened my Wind and pointed Chrome to the NY Times. One of their top stories discussed the exit interviews being given by President Bush and Vice President Cheney. While Bush at least admits that he was unprepared for war, Cheney is completely unapologetic.
Mr. Cheney, by contrast, is unbowed, defiant to the end. He called the Supreme Court “wrong” for overturning Bush policies on detainees at Guantánamo Bay; criticized his successor, Vice President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.; and defended the harsh interrogation technique called waterboarding, considered by many legal authorities to be torture.
“I feel very good about what we did,” the vice president told The Washington Times, adding, “If I was faced with those circumstances again, I’d do exactly the same thing.”
It's been said many times before, but Cheney believes that the President is above the law when serving his country. I think Cheney would say that the executive must be unfettered by the law when protecting America... but the result is the same either way. In fact, it's clear that Cheney believes Nixon didn't go far enough, that he never should have felt guilty or admitted to anything.
Today, Cheney, the most powerful Vice President in U.S. history, says he has no advice for VP-elect Biden, and clearly states that he authorized torture (or, as is the official term, "enhanced interrogation") of "terror suspects." He characterizes his decision as making the hard choice, and asks us to take it on faith that his action has made America safer.
Assuming that Cheney's statement is correct, even Nixon would ask: what point is there in acting to protect America if that act undercuts the very tenents upon which the country has been built and claims to hold high for the world as its banner ideals?
* If you saw and enjoyed Frost/Nixon, you'll also enjoy Fog of War, the brilliant film by Errol Morris centering around his interviews with Robert McNamara, the Secretary of Defense under President Kennedy.
[Image via If Charlie Parker Was a Gunslinger, There'd Be a Whole Lot of Dead Copycats.]
My Gal
Tina Fey strikes a pro-NRA Palin pose.
Cutting piece in this week's New Yorker on Palin as veep candidate.
In summary: Because my candidate, unlike your winking/blinking Vice-Presidential candidate, who, though, yes, he did run as the running mate when the one asking him to run did ask him to run, which that I admire, one thing he did not do, with his bare hands or otherwise, is, did he ever kill a moose? No, but ours did. And I would. Please bring a moose to me, over by me, and down that moose will go, and, if I had a kid, I would take a picture of me showing my kid that dead moose, going, like, Uh, sweetie, no, he is not resting, he is dead, due to I shot him, and now I am going to eat him, and so are you, oh yes you are, which is responsible, as God put this moose here for us to shoot and eat and take a photo of, although I did not, at that time, know why God did, but in years to come, God’s will was revealed, which is: Hey, that is a cool photo for hunters about to vote to see, plus what an honor for that moose, to be on the Internet.
Brings a grin to the faces of the snarky and well-educated, and witty and funny in its own right ... but really -- isn't this just mocking people who support Palin because they have trouble relating to or understanding the other candidates?
Sure, maybe that's worth mocking -- the last 8 years certainly point to a need for increased mockery -- but Obama is saying that he wants to be a unifying force in America. Taking Obama at his word, this is the sort of article that those on the Left need to stop writing. Then again, maybe sarcasm, inside jokes and poking fun at blue-collar America and those who didn't have an opportunity for much of an education is still fair game. For that, all well-heeled citizens can do is offer thanks to McCain's irresponsible nomination of an under-qualified running mate, intentionally-scribbled signs at the RNC, attack ads by McCain that even Karl Rove, the Sith Lord himself, says are irresponsible and go too far. While we on the Left tremble at the thought of losing the election in November, at least we can share a laugh today.
For his part, comedic genius Chevy Chase weighed in on Tina Fey's spot-on portrayal of Palin on last Saturday's SNL:
I thought it was extraordinary how well she played her and much she looked like her. . . Personally, I felt we didn't need the Hillary stuff -- I'd like her to go even harder. I want her to decimate this woman. This woman, I can't believe there hasn't been more about it... It's just unbelievable to me this woman is actually running for Vice President!
Good talk, Chevy. Now don't let your mother smell that beer on your breath.
What A Rough Week
Apocalypse Now
In more-or-less chronological order, here's a list of some of the ridiculous and troubling events that happened last week...
- Fannie May and Freddie Mac are bailed out by the Federal government. $500 billion dollars to take control of these quasi-governmental institutions, ruined in the "mortgage crisis." As an astute poster on digg.com mentions, why is it that there's no money for universal healthcare, yet the government can scrape together half a trillion dollars in no time flat to bail out financial institutions?
- United Airline's stock dropped from nearly $12.50 a share to $3 a share... for no good reason. Here's what happened: Google News' software found an old article in the Chicago Tribune about a 2002 United bankruptcy-court filing. As the old article wasn't properly dated, it was posted by Google News as though it were new news. Software used by stock traders to automatically buy and sell stock found the article and started to sell. And sell. And sell. This automated sell-off, combined with the Tribune article and pre-existing fears about the weakness of United's stock amid ongoing trouble in the airline industry caused the rumor to spread like wildfire. When the dust cleared later in the day, trading of United stock had been frozen at $3. The price went back up to $10.60 a share, but the damage had been done. $1.14 billion had been lost -- gone, evaporated, *poof*.
- McCain caught Obama in the polls. Sure, the RNC provided a bump, but the larger cause for the bump is most troubling. All Palin, all the time. She has minimal experience, her primary interaction with the public was a well-delivered speech written before her nomination, and until a Thursday interview with ABC, she refused to answer questions (for good reason; the VP should probably know what the Bush Doctrine is, at least well enough to BS an answer). Yet because she's a pretty woman selling herself as a religious frontier-mom, she's polling through the roof. McCain v. Obama? The actual contest? Who cares. In the popularity contest that is the Presidential election for much of America, Palin's revisiting her role as Prom Queen. Issues and experience be damned.
- David Foster Wallace hanged himself at home in Claremont, CA. I've read some of his essays, and had just started his masterwork, Infinite Jest. Only twenty pages in, I was already wondering how anyone could walk through life with such thoughts rattling around in one's head. It seems that over time, not even he could handle it. The greatest young author of the last hundred years is gone, dead at 46. Some who knew him offer tribute.
- A freight train and passenger train collide, head-on in California. At least 23 dead. Possible cause of the accident? One of the engineers may have been texting with teens interested in the railroad, as an education/public service task, just before the accident -- the worst of its kind in the region.
- Syria invades Lebanon. (Sadly, I'm guessing you may have heard about it here first.)
- Hurricane Ike pummels the Texas coast.
- The financial sector continues its slide to the bottom. Can the banks fall further? Apparently yes. "Merrill Lynch agreed to sell itself on Sunday to Bank of America for roughly $50 billion to avert a deepening financial crisis, while another prominent securities firm, Lehman Brothers, filed for bankruptcy protection and hurtled toward liquidation after it failed to find a buyer. . . . But even as the fates of Lehman and Merrill hung in the balance, another crisis loomed as the insurance giant American International Group appeared to teeter. Staggered by losses stemming from the credit crisis, A.I.G. sought a $40 billion lifeline from the Federal Reserve, without which the company may have only days to survive." Alan Greenspan, the former Fed Chief who could have done a lot to minimize this problem by raising interest rates a touch while he was still in office, now says that the economy is in a "once-in-a-lifetime" crisis. For a better understanding of what's going on and how we got here, Paul Krugman provides insight.
- To end on a positive note, Tina Fey and Amy Pohler did a great job leading off this year's SNL season opener.
[Photo via Waxin' and Milkin']