This film, directed by McG, is in bleached color to give to it a grainy noir look but the film itself never achieves that atmosphere or feeling . Its model, like most of these films, is the dystopian noir created by Ridley Scott in Blade Runner. Sorry sports fans there is no one who even comes close to Deckard, Roy Batty, Rachael or Gaff here. However the film is more like Transformers which is about robots, the sequel to which is due out shortly.

It takes place in 2018, not too far away buckaroos, just after Judgment Day when the machines rose up to eliminate the humans. John Conner played by Christian Bale (who appears to be more robotic than the robots) is the leader of a human guerrilla movement made up of a central command cadre and many isolated groups surviving despite the fact that HK (hunter killer) robots are searching for them directed by drones and the machine overall command, Skynet. Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin) is in one of these isolated bands but in radio contact with central command.

There is no love interest or even and expectation of romance in this film Although Conner appears to have a wife or girlfriend the relationship is not developed. The film is more of a robot vehicle than a human one.

The humans are organizing into a resistance against the machines and they even have fighter aircraft at their disposal. The machines are perfecting their cyborg models. We see a prototype model of Arnold for a few seconds. However, mostly the more advanced robots are the stainless steel laser eyed models with out human skin reminiscent of Malcolm X in their intense glare.

Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington) is a former executed killer whose body parts have been assembled into a machine with a stainless steel frame, but with a human head, heart, brain and senses. He is obviously an early experimental type that will be later developed into the Arnold type seen in the first movie. He has been in a state of suspended animation until accidentally revived and left to wander in this post apocalyptic world. Although he was executed for murder he seems to have become a more thoughtful, sensitive soul, more man than machine.

Conner meets Kyle but doesn’t know who he is and is unaware that he will some day be his father. To him Kyle is just another snot nosed kid in the ragtag army he is assembling.

The driving force of the movie are the action scenes in a destroyed world and the fact that the robot man, Wright, who happens to be the only empathetic character, saves the lives of Conner and Reese to fight another day.

This is primarily an action film with a PG-13 rating (the original had an R rating) designed to appeal to the comic book set and not for adult consumption unless you have had a prefrontal lobotomy in a previous life. Since this franchise grosses more overseas than in the U.S. (expect the current one to gross around 500 milllion worldwide with box office split one third U.S. and two thirds overseas) the film was probably made more with the overseas audience in mind than the U.S. audience . So it was targeted at the lowest common denominator for the broadest appeal world wide. That said, the James Bond franchise with a similar boxoffice break down, except for the sci-fi factor, seems to put out a better film, at least lately, and the material I don't think is better just the writing, acting and direction.

This film has none of the hooks, verve, originality, damsel in distress or drama of the original film and we would not be talking about it if there had been no original. It probably would have gone straight to DVD.

Given all this one wonders if Kyle Reese was killed would it make any difference who went back to save Sarah so long As he was young and virile. All the strong qualities we see in Conner are those we see in Sarah.

Then again we may ask do great men emerge to meet the demands of trying times which gives them a chance to exhibit their hidden strengths. So if Conner never lived would there be some one else to take his place of equal or better ability?

If the Civil War had not occurred would Ulysses S. Grant have remained a drunken Ohio farmer? Or if the Iraq War had been a success from the outset would David Petraeus have emerged out of the bowels of the Army bureaucracy?

If World War II had not occurred would Major Dwight Eisenhower have retired as a Lt Colonel of no particular distinction or would George S. Patton been allowed to distinguish his previously checkered career. This list goes on and on where men condemned to tedium rise to greatness when events offer them their chance.

Shakespeare observed:

“There is a tide in the affairs of men.
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.”

So one wonders if another great leader would emerge if John Conner had not been born. Probably so. Too bad Conner aficionados. What about the robots? Will a great robot leader emerge to lead them? Young Darth Vader where are you? Sharpen your pencils screenwriters... or perhaps your minds and get to work.

Labels: Film Review: Terminator Salvation.

The story centers around a Palestinian widow, Salma ( Arab-Israeli actress, Hiam Abbass) living alone, on a lemon grove inherited from her deceased father. Her husband is prematurely dead and her children live elsewhere leaving her to survive on the income from her lemon grove which she tends with the assistance of an aged family retainer.

Her life radically changes when a new Israeli Defense Minister, Israel Navon, (Doron Tavory) moves into a house bordering her land with his wife Mira (Rona Lipaz Michael).

Navron’s security people advise him to have the grove cut down as it offers cover for terrorists attempting to attack his home. Both Navron and his wife are conflicted by this advice but he reluctantly agrees and the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) proceeds with the legalities of taking the land and removing the trees for security reasons.

Salma makes inquiries as to her options with the local Arab leaders and is advised that it is a lost cause to oppose the IDF on a security issue. Consulting Arab lawyer, Ziad Daud, (Ali Suliman) she again learns that her case involving a land taking for security reasons has little chance and that she is lucky she has been offered compensation. Despite these dire predictions she is compelled to fight, because of father’s legacy, the military order in Israeli courts.

In the meantime the grove is fenced off from her house and Salma is not permitted to water or tend her trees. Mira whose children are away at school is left in her house much of the time while her husband is away on defense business.

Mira, who is estranged from her husband and in this respect also alone, is aware of the calamitous result of the taking to the widow whose house she can see from her window. She sees the soldiers preventing Salma from tending her trees which are now dying. She questions the need for the decision and it is a source of conflict between her self and her husband. This is compounded by the suggestion that he is having an affair with a young female attaché on his staff.

Mira tries to visit Salma and nearly makes it but security agents stop her at Salma’s door and she returns to her house overlooking the lemon grove and Salma’s modest home.

The lemon grove is based on true events and is an allegory for the state of Israeli-Palestinian relations. What ever rapprochement between Arab and Israeli on the personal level and on the official level might be possible is either made impossible or severely curtailed by the militants on both sides.

Although Mira would like to reach out to Salma she cannot for security reasons although Salma, herself, is non threatening. However as the Israeli's well know , appearances can be deceiving.

Her husband is Defense Minister and a separatist politician, who could override his security advisors decision, he chooses not to because he realizes that the lemon grove is a metaphor for events happening all over Israel and he will be seen as soft on defense if he acquiesces to his wife’s wishes that Salma’s grove be left intact.

There many secondary themes in this picture. One is that the Arab friends of her late husband are upset she is seen as being too close to lawyer Zaid. This is a meretricious relationship in their eyes as the lawyer is half her age and is also engaged to a prominent Arab politician’s daughter. However they are unconcerned with her struggle to keep her lemon grove and offer neither financial nor moral support. So the film is a comment as well concerning the status of Arab women in Arabic society

A perceptive woman journalist recognizes the emotional aspect of this story, a poor widow fighting the government to preserve her lemon grove and the matter becomes front page news. However the defense minister defends his actions by saying that his hands are tied by the military, the ongoing assaults by Hezbollah rockets in the north and by terrorist acts throughout Israel.

Salma achieves a pyrrhic victory when she wins the right to keep half her lemon grove. At the end the defense minister is in his fortress like house with his view of a once pastoral country side including the lemon grove blocked by the separating wall.

Salma is seen walking her land with half her lemon trees cut back to just above the roots but not completely destroyed so they will grow again with care, symbolic perhaps of the Arab-Israeli condition. The lawyer who made advances towards her is gone, married to the politician’s daughter and the Defense minister is alone in his walled off secure house. Mira is also gone.

The lynchpin of this film is Hiam Abbass whose soulful face reveals the pain of her life and condition. This is mirrored in Mira’s intense feeling that she would like to reach across the divide that separates them and at least communicate as women facing similar problems. In the end everybody loses something and what is gained, Navron’s security or half Salma’s grove, is a bitter bargain for what was lost. The film is well written and directed. The cinematographer was Ranier Klausmann

Labels: Film Review: Lemon Tree

Labels: FILM REVIEW: American Violet:

This area of Louisiana was heavily involved in the production and refinement of petroleum products. A by product of this activity was severe pollution and the heath problems caused by a polluted environment. The picture infers that his mother’s eleven miscarriages were a consequence of her exposure to this pollution.

A major attribute of this film is its positive outlook on the solution to the problems created by our oil driven world.

Tickell in the film promotes the development of bio-fuel which he has done for most of is post college life. In particular he converted a “Veggie Van” to run on a diesel engine using waste vegetable oil. He drove the colorfully painted van 25 thousand miles around the U.S. promoting the use of bio-fuel for eleven years while gathering materials for this documentary.

This is a thinking person’s film and it gives the history of petroleum and the relationship that has developed between the oil companies, the auto manufacturers and the politicians. This relationship, driven by greed and shortsightedness, has done much to create our present dilemma. The pace, levity and positive viewpoint of the film also make it entertaining.

The purpose of the film is not to blame or condemn. It mostly explores the ways to solve our energy crisis and in particular advances the argument for bio-fuels, both for gas engines and diesel engines. In doing so it points out that most of the news stories we see discounting bio-fuels as a viable energy source are unfounded or the result of a public relations barrage by big oil and automobile interests.

Rudolph Diesel originally built his engine to run on vegetable oil and he used peanut oil for his fuel. Today’s diesel engines can run on bio-fuel, even discarded vegetable oils from restaurants as Tickell has shown in his journey.This fuel is cleaner than oil based diesel fuel.

Gasoline engines can run on ethanol also a bio-fuel. This fuel is usually derived from corn and soybeans and other food crops. When these crops are diverted, usually by government subsidies to make them economically competitive with oil based gasoline, they drive up the cost of these crops on the world market. This means hunger for those who can not meet the price rise created by the increased demand for such crops when also used as bio-fuel.

Bio-diesel has a 1 to 3 ratio of efficiency whereas the ratio of efficiency is nearly equal in ethanol used in gasoline engines. In other words the energy used in producing ethanol is nearly the same as the amount of energy produced by the ethanol.

The true cost of gasoline is hidden. It is not the price paid at the pump for a gallon of gas. If you factor in the cost of a military to protect our sources and supply lines as well as subsidies to the oil industry made directly by the Government or through tax breaks the cost to the taxpayer is much higher. Then the cost of the damage to the Earth and our climate must also be taken into account.

When all this is added in it is better to spend about eight dollars a gallon for bio diesel while giving tax breaks or subsidies to bring the pump price down to about $3.00 as we do with gasoline and ethanol now.

In Brazil ethanol is made from their sugar crop, this product would be a competitor of our ethanol but is prevented from import to our market by tariffs.

The film makes the point that no one energy source will solve the energy crisis but bio- fuels can be used to solve our transportation needs and that the need to import oil can be eliminated for this purpose. This will go a long way to divorcing ourselves from hostile regimes in the Mid East.

It also advances the proposition that algae grown in sewer waste water can be made into bio-fuels sufficient to meet world demand for transportation energy.

The pace of the film and the information and ideas it advances are always entertaining as well as presenting food for thought.

This film is well worth seeing.

Labels: Fuel: A film review. Rated A

WALTZ WITH BASHIR: Mad Dogs In The Night. Director Ari Folman. Rated A

THE READER: Director Stephan Daldry, with Kate Winslet and Ralph Fiennes. Rated A.

The Unexamined Life.

WALTZ WITH BASHIR

This is an autobiographical film by Ari Folman. The opening sequence is a pack of ravenous dogs chasing a child or maybe a man. It is part of recurring nightmare that a friend of Folman has and he seeks to understand why as he suspects it has something to do with their wartime service in Lebanon. It is an experience Folman has little or no memory of at least not in his conscious recollection.

The film is about Folman visiting with old comrades to understand the nightmare. By talking to his fellow soldiers, who all have moved on in life, he pieces to together events that occurred nearly twenty five years ago in Lebanon when an atrocity was committed against Palestinian Refugees.

The picture was originally shot as a conventional documentary and then processed into an animated documentary.

Folman gives the film a dream like feel almost as if the author is exploring his own subconscious.

By visiting and talking to his fellow conscripts he learns of incidents that in the end reveals to him that the suppressed memories he is seeking to revive are the slaughter of children, women, old men and allegedly Palestinian fighters in The Palestinian refuge camps named Shatila and Sabra in Lebanon.

The camps were in control of the Israeli Army surrounded by their armored vehicles. (This takes place allegedly when the main body of Palestinian fighters has left for Tunis under a cease fire agreement. a fact not disclosed in the film.) The Christian Phalangist militia was invited by the Israeli’s to clean up the remnants of any Palestinian fighters in the camps. However the Phalangists slaughtered men, women and children savagely and indiscriminately.

Folman learns that he and his fellow soldiers are complicit in the slaughter even to the point of firing flares to aid the Phalangists bent on revenge for the assassination of their beloved leader Bashir Gamayel two days before. Over three days the Phalangists roamed the camps executing and killing numerous Palestinians. The Israeli troops stood by in their tanks and armored vehicles surrounding the camps not preventing what they could have prevented and perhaps were conspirators complicit in instigating the massacre on a senior level. The Minister of Defense at the time, Ariel Sharon, was later dismissed by a subsequent investigation by the Israeli Government and banned from serving as a Defense Minister in the future.

Folman doesn’t level blame in the film against anyone and just documents what happened and that the lower level soldiers did not know or understand what was taking place.

However it is evident his psyche was disturbed and he unconsciously feels he and the other soldiers were duped into complicity with out knowing the criminality of the Phalangist slaughter. In the end the film leaves the viewer to ruminate as to who is responsible for the outrages that occur during war, the low level soldiers, or the generals and the policy makers who place their men in position to aid evil and possibly to do evil with out understanding the morality of their acts .

THE READER: The Unexamined Life.

Waltz can be compared with the Reader. It is a film with Kate Winslet playing an illiterate German concentration camp guard, Hanna Schmitz. David Kross plays Michael Berg as a teenager. Ralph Fiennes plays Berg as a law student and lawyer. She befriends the teenage Berg after the war when she is working as an assistant trolley conductor. She is his first initiation into sex.

Later as, a law student attending a trial, Berg learns that she was responsible for the death of numerous Jewish prisoners she was transporting to another camp when they were locked in a church for the night. That night Allied fire bombs hit the church and most of the prisoners were burned to death because the guards would not unlock the church doors.

The term “reader” refers to Michael Berg, who when he becomes Winslet’s lover he also serves as her reader. Although illiterate she has an affinity for good literature and even as a guard had the Jewish prisoners read to her. Later when the affair is long over Fiennes as a law student attends her trial by happenstance and learns for the first time that Winslet is accused of crimes she committed as a guard. Like Folman, Winslet is not immediately conscious of the immorality of her acts. She saw herself as conscientiously carrying out her duties to the State even to the extent of allowing prisoners to burn to death.

“I was only following my duties as guard.”

She is allowed to testify. The more sophisticated guards, who denied any responsibility for the event, make her the scapegoat by her own testimony believing she was only doing her duty to the Third Reich. She is sentenced and serves twenty years in prison while the other, obviously more guilty and literate, guards get short sentences. The picture infers that the court was unaware of her illiteracy and Hanna testifies she wrote the official report to the higher command, as if she was in charge, to cover up her shame of being illiterate.

Fiennes is conflicted to learn that this woman who tenderly initiated him into sex when he was fifteen could also be the callous guard responsible for the loss of so many lives. Over the period of her incarceration Fiennes sends her his readings of the books she seeks on tape. This also inspires her to become literate. Her self education makes her become aware of the wrongfulness of her acts as a guard. A job she left a production line at a manufacturing plant for because she thought she was advancing herself in the world.

Both these films show the ignorance of low level persons carrying out state policies as to the consequences and morality of their acts. They defer the issues or right or wrong to their leaders. In both films the protagonists many years later, upon reflection, are overwhelmed by guilt caused by their role in the events. In Hanna’s case she goes to prison and suffers other psychic consequences.

Ari Folman suffers deep subconscious consequences which he may not have purged himself of by making this film.

An interesting fact in Waltz is that the Doctrine of Command Responsibility was not enforced against the Israeli leadership or the Phalangist leaders except for the dismissal of Ariel Sharon as Defense Minister at the time.

Both these films are excellent explorations of who bears the responsibility for evil acts, those who make policy or those who blindly follow orders or both. They also show that the involvement in evil acts, even unwittingly, causes damage not only to the victims but to the low level perpetrators who may be unaware of the immorality of their acts at the time committed. To the people caught up in these events their loyalty and obedience to the state or their superiors in command seems to blot out the moral ramifications of their acts. However on later reflection, except for the truly criminal personality, they experience psychic consequences.

Labels: Film Review: Waltz/The Reader

Richard Nixon once said that the media would not have him to kick around any more as he was retiring from politics. This was after losing the race for the governorship of California to Pat Brown in 1962. It was an emotional moment on election night and he was conceding victory to Brown. How wrong he was on all counts. If nothing else the man was a come from behind fighter who would reenter politics and win two presidential elections and the media is still kicking him around 14 years after his death. The latest onslaught is this film based on myth, fiction and few facts.

The premise of the film is that a histrionic, English, talk show host on a down hill slide could best Richard Nixon in a television talk show about the ups and downs of his presidency including Watergate.

Frost is played by Michael Sheen who played Tony Blair in The Queen and Frank Langella best remembered as the infamous Clare Quilty in Lolita plays Nixon. Ron Howard is the director most recently remembered for the DaVinci Code and the director of the forth coming Angels and Demons based on the books by Dan Brown who apparently has come and gone leaving not much of intelligence or relevance behind except for the thin gruel of his two best known novels purchased and produced by the pop culture specialist Brian Grazer.

Sheen plays Frost as the superficial stand up comedian turned talk show host he was. He is depicted as a glib, skirt chasing hustler who secures an interview by paying Nixon and his agent Irving Lazar $600,000 for four 90 minute segments made on the speculation it would be picked up by one the major networks. However, ABC, NBC and CBS had, and still do, a strong aversion of securing interviews or news by paying for them. It is called checkbook journalism and it is considered an unreliable method of obtaining the truth, best left to the gossip rags like the National Enquirer, The Globe and others of the same ilk.

Parts of the original interviews are available on You Tube including the parts where Nixon says, “I gave my enemies a sword and they stuck it in me just as I would do the same to them,” or on Watergate, “I failed the American people”, or “when the president does something it is for the benefit of the American people and therefore not illegal.”

This is a dramatization of these conversation interspersed with the events that allegedly took place outside of the conversations themselves. One would be tempted to call this some kind of docudrama interspersed with actual newsreel footage from the era but that would be wrong. This is mainly a fictional drama. A well acted and well directed work, but a fiction never the less.

There are many remarks made to trivialize Nixon’s character such as he was greedy man seeking money for the interview and also a book deal. Hardly a greedy act by today’s standards and an examination of Nixon’s career indicates that he would have made much more money as a partner in the Wall Street firm, Nixon, Mudge, Rose, Guthrie & Alexander if he stayed away from politics as he promised in 1962. Thus this trivializing of his character in an off hand way and other ways weakens the credibility of the picture. Among other things it is mentioned that Nixon thinks Italian loafers are effeminate or that Nixon disapproved of Frost’s relationship with Dianne Carroll because he was white and she was black.

This trivialization by the director and Langella’s characterization of Nixon in hundreds of direct and subliminal ways makes for the creation of a bad guy for the audience to hate but does a disservice to the audience, especially the younger audience, if there is a younger audience for this picture. The film should at least make a make an attempt to be a neutral observer of history for posterity’s sake if you pretend to be relating historical events of some consequence to American politics and the American political psyche.

A fundamental fiction in the picture and a key plot point is when Nixon calls Frost shortly before the Watergate segment is to be videotaped. This never took place. Also it is strongly inferred that Nixon was drunk at the time. Frost was challenged by Nixon in this fictional conversation and this energizes Frost to dig into the facts and do his homework on the time line and facts of Watergate and including the statement by Nixon he could raise a million dollars to silence the Watergate burglars if necessary. Which Nixon made before the eighteen minute tape erasure and indicates his knowledge and complicity in the cover-up.

Frost, according to the film, up to this point had conducted an ineffective interview exposing his lack of preparation for the events discussed. He basically asked prepared questions written on a clipboard and was unable to follow up with questions challenging Nixon’s assertions.

Nixon, working with out notes, parried his every question turning the answer around with unchallenged facts that reflected well on Nixon. Frost had according to this film failed as a journalist, an interviewer and exposed himself to ridicule amongst the more savvy political journalists by his naivete and lack of sophistication.

The fictional late night conversation with Nixon is meant to show just as the allegedly flawed character of Nixon laid the ground work for his own denouement in the real Watergate matter he does so again in the Watergate segment by invigorating a previously feckless Frost, who when challenged, finally did his home work and pointed out the errors in Nixon’s assertions that led to the concessions from Nixon that made the interviews a success. (A success for Frost in a monetary sense as he was able to sell the interviews in syndication to advertisers.) He also has been since knighted probably because of his financial benefit to the England like many other successful entertainers and businessmen have been also. Mick Jagger, Elton John, Richard Branson and many others have been knighted for their dubious contributions to Great Briton.

The inference to be drawn from this is that just as Nixon was his own hangman in the Watergate cover-up, he is again in this interview by goading Frost to the point where he doesn’t let Nixon slide or gloss over the facts of his role in Watergate. Thus Frost was finally eliciting what the maker of the film thinks are damaging concessions on tape for broadcast later. In this sense it is the second time that television was Nixon's Achilles's heel with its peculiar way of immortalizing an event in a crucible that can be manipulated in the hands of cameraman, producers, directors, editors, and others in control of the final shaping of the tapes. Lest one forget Frost was in final control of the tapes and the editing of same. The first time this happened was during the Kennedy debates which Nixon says the radio audience thought he won but the television watchers and critics thought otherwise. Thus costing him the presidency.

Frost is shown in this film as besting the man who went head to head with Mao, Nikita Khrushchev, Leonid Brezhnev and John Kennedy. Some the most able and politically astute men of the Twentieth Century. Is it possible that a man who was not a journalist or known for his political acuity, a past host of the Guinness Book of Records to best one the political eminences of the last half of the 20th Century? Only if Nixon wanted it to happen that way, not because Frost made it happen in reality.

Whatever Nixon decided to say was because he wanted to say it and also the fact he had total immunity, both civil and criminal, at the time he said it. If one looks at the You Tube clips of the real interview and then compares them with this film, so well directed and choreographed by Mr. Howard and acted by Langella, Sheehan and the supporting actors, you see that Nixon was essentially an honest man who made mistakes believing that he was acting in the best interest of the country. Although what he thought was best for the country in a situation with many gray areas was not a 20/20 assessment or even an unbiased assessment.

Langella’s depiction of Nixon as a louche character is unfair to Nixon, to history and to the American people. Anthony Hopkins depiction of Nixon in Oliver Stone’s Nixon was better and closer to the mark as was Stones film a more honest attempt in dealing with the subject mater. If there is a louche character in this matter it was the real David Frost the final editor of the tapes. Michael Sheehan, a fine actor, comes across as too wholesome to play the real David Frost.

The problem with the film is that Mr. Howard, who made this film from an adaption of Peter Morgan’s play, painted the events and characters in black and white, inventing facts and creating myth’s to reach the audience emotionally and unnecessarily vilifying Nixon.

There should be a disclaimer at the beginning of this film stating that this is not history but a loose dramatization of past events for profit. Just as the taping and editing by David Frost was a dramatization for profit beyond Nixon’s control. Nixon gave Frost a sword and he used it. Nixon seems to have had a political death wish.

The film is attempt to demonize a man on the opposite side of the political spectrum from its creators 14 years after his death with a total failure to show Nixon in any positive light or neutral light.

It even pretends to be authentic by scrolling certain facts at the end as if all facts were depicted accurately in the film. This is the usual case when entertainment people attempt to dramatize current or recent events. They are so blinded by their own profit motive, prejudices and predilections that they fail to be objective. This film is technically well done but that’s as far as it goes. Howard and Glazer can return to their latest religious potboiler thinking they have added a political notch to their resumes when they have not fully analyzed or portrayed Nixon's complicated persona.

Labels: NIXON/FROST

Slumdog Millionaire: STARK REALISM OF WORLD POVERTY IN THE UNDERSIDE OF BOLLYWOOD. Director: DANNY BOYLE

Danny Boyle has gone to the slums of Mumbai for this picture about the lives and fortunes of three orphans struggling to survive and escape the terrible reality of life in an Indian slum. The story involves three children, two bothers Jamal and Salim, and Latika a girl, from the ages of five or six until adult hood. Boyle pulls no punches in depicting the realities of their lives and the lives of other children caught in similar circumstances. One of the other orphans who has a good singing voice is deliberately blinded to increase his revenue from begging by a Fagin like character.

Boyle’s film is based on a novel by Vikas Swarup.

The writer has encapsulated Jamal’s story in flashbacks while he is a contestant on the Indian version of “Do You Want to Be a Millionaire”? Improbably, he is able to answer difficult questions by remembering his life experiences on the streets of India. This format and the fact it is coupled with his quest to find and rescue Latika, who in the end has turned into a beautiful young woman sold in to prostitution by the Fagin like character. All this creates a narrative tension and romantic quest in the film and along with the superb acting by the children and other characters makes the film worth watching. The actors are unknowns in this country so it is a story driven film.

Had this film not been done skillfully by Boyle it would have been notable but not commercially viable in today’s market. It would have been another fine Indie film unable to secure a theatrical release or perhaps not even a DVD one, doomed to the backwaters of our, action, adventure, celebrity, cartoon film culture of “tales full of sound and fury signifying nothing.”

As it stands now it is not in the top twenty earners probably because of the gritty realism and limited release in selected theaters.

This film makes a strong statement against the injustice of poverty particularly on children in Mumbai and in the third world countries of the world.

The story is engrossing and one never finds he is losing interest or wishing the story would end prematurely. The cinematography is in color, is excellent and cut to keep you visually on the edge of your seat. All in all it is on the level of films that are considered for an Academy Award and will be a classic as time goes on if it is not already.

Labels: Slumdog Millionaire

Bush is softening up the public with teaser pardons of low profile people convicted of various Federal offenses. In this way he will provide some cover as being egalitarian when he pardons the big fish out of necessity.

Here are the some of the little fish he pardoned or had their sentences commuted recently as reported by the Associated Press:

Labels: Bush Pardons

Labels: Sarah Palin

Labels: Joe The Plumber

From Sarah, Small Town Homemaker To Sarah, Candidate Fashionista. Image And Message Lost.

A recent NYT/CBS poll indicated that 59% of voters surveyed thought Sarah Palin was not prepared to be Vice President. A third of the voters polled thought that John McCain’s choice of her as a running mate showed poor judgment and would be a factor in voting for him.

Palin was a wild card played by McCain to revive his campaign and to identify his candidacy with the conservative Republican base and middle class mothers with young families. However many Republican loyalists were infuriated to learn that Palin had spent $150,000 on high end clothing. The backlash was such she immediately reverted to her personal wardrobe and the campaign said that the clothes would be donated to charity and some of the campaign funds would be returned to those who had donated and complained.

Her addition to the campaign was also for her to identify with middleclass mothers in blue collar swing states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. That identification was lost with the revelation of her shopping spree at Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue using RNC campaign funds, perhaps illegally.

McCain has long been grasping at straws to save his failing candidacy. First it was the unqualified Palin who makes up for lack of experience and political sophistication with her telegenic presence, charisma and her unabashed ambition and moxie. She seems to be reveling in the give and take of campaigning. She recently appeared with Joe the Plumber at a rally in Ohio. Two lower middle class people with the value systems of the wealthy and conservative. Strange bedfellows indeed.

Joe as we all know neither has a plumbing license, or is enrolled in a journeyman program to get a license. He will see not any change in his taxes under the plans for either candidate. He is an employee of a small plumbing company that is also under the tax threshold of $250000 proposed by Obama. Joe is allegedly concerned about an increase in taxes that would only affect persons in a much higher bracket then he is in.

Thus Palin and Joe turn out to be straw persons easily knocked down and debunked by the media.

This is a fundamental flaw in the McCain candidacy. McCain is allegedly for change and a maverick that will follow his own vision. However he supported the Bush Administration and the Republican

Majority’s policies 95% of the time on taxation and the War on Terror for the last eight years . Thus he has turned to these straw persons to try and identify himself with the average family whose interest he has decimated in his adherence to the Bush Administrations policies

McCain’s legacy arising out of this campaign is that he brought wrong headed Sarah Palin into the public conscientiousness’ and with her telegenic image, charisma and populist appeal she liable to be a conservative candidate in the future if not elected on November 4^th, 2008.

The other side effect is that Joe the Plumber now has an a management company called Pathfinder, hired to keep him in the public eye and hopefully find a career for him as a advertising spokesperson. This will apparently be for companies like Home Depot?

Sweet dreams for the McCain Candidacy and for McCain and Joe, the new Tiny Tim (an odd creature created by a late night talk show who rose to notoriety and then ruin when he lost his spot in the public limelight. Howard Stern does the same thing with some of the misfits he has on his show.) Joe will soon fade into history. McCain, if not elected will go back to the Senate. I'm not so sure about Sarah Palin, McCain may have openned Pandora's Box and allowed her to jump out when he named her as a candidate for a national office.

Labels: Sarah Palin

Sarah Palin appeared at a rally today in Florida wearing a pink Jacket From “Out Of The Closet” a consignment shop in Anchorage Alaska. She waived her $35.00 marriage ring and said “I’m
going to wear my own clothes for the rest of the week.”

THE SHAPE SHIFTER. REVEALS HERSELF FOR A MOMENT. Maverick, No! Independent Minded, No!

After that it will be safe to get out the Nieman Marcus and Saks clothes which ever way the election turns out.

How dumb does she think the electorate is? All she had to say is that my co- candidate and his wife are wearing expensive clothes because they are in the media’s eye and our media consultant told me to do the same or else I would look like Little Orphan Annie. It was only appropriate that I dress as well as John McCain and his wife Cindy McCain. Mrs. McCain has always been a fashion statement standing in her impeccable St John couture next to her husband in his two thousand dollar suits and five hundred and fifty dollar Ferragamo loafers, like a good Republican millionaire who believes the poverty line starts below five million a year for U.S families.

Michelle Obama and Joe Biden’s wife, Jill, seem to dress like average women who are not of the country club set. They make a point of being well dressed but not lavishly attired. Mrs. Obama said she was wearing J. Crew on a television talk show recently.

Palin’s refusal to stand her ground is an indication that she being manipulated by the McCain campaign consultants like the Barbie Doll that she has been labeled and not the “tough maverick” she would like us to believe.

Obliviously Palin is window dressing like, McCain’s wife, for the McCain Campaign which each day tries to disseminate more misinformation about his policies.

First he had the same exact policies as Bush. However, now he says he is not Bush. Well, we all know that. However he espouses the same trickle down tax policies of Bush and was for the same limited government with no meaning full regulation of Wall Street and the banks as Bush. If elected he would install the same cadre of lobbyists in the bureaucracy that Bush has or their identical surrogates from K Street. On Iraq, he has the same policy as Bush, talk tough and muddle through and above all else disregard the advice of experts and Allies. Don't even put some who might disagree with you on your staff. They're probably not from K Street anyway.

Lincoln said it: “You can fool some of the people all the time. All the people some of the time. But you can’t fool all the people all the time.”

Sarah Palin is living up to her image as lipstick for McCain’s failing campaign.

If she was a maverick and independent minded she would have defended her new wardrobe as necessary in a media age where image is everything. She chose the image of Cindy McCain or the campaign consultants did and she should have stuck with it. The sad thing is she thinks she has to make excuses for herself in such a trite manner. Tough minded, independent maverick. No. Simplistic Barbie Doll for window dressing in a failing campaign. Yes.

Labels: campaign, Clothes, Palin

THE McCAIN SARAH PALIN AND THE ALASKA SARAH PALIN, GUESS WHICH ONE.

Politico.com and the AP have published stories that after Sarah Palin’s selection as a running mate by John McCain the Republican National Committee (RNC) purchased $150,000 clothing and other accessories including hair styling and make up for Sarah Palin at Neiman Marcus other expensive stores.

The expenses include $75,062 spent at Neiman Marcus in Minneapolis and $41,850 at Saks in St. Louis in early September. The committee also reported spending $4,100 for makeup and hair consulting. The expenses were first reported by Politico.com

The RNC says the clothes belong to the party committee while the McCain campaign says the clothing will go to a "charitable purpose" after the campaign. McCain can’t accept private donations since he elected public funding for his campaign one of the reasons the purchase came through the RNC. Further it may not be a legal campaign expenditure either by the candidate or the RNC. McCain could not raise enough money from individual donors to equal or better the public funding. This is unheard in the case of a Republican nominee. It tells us that the public doesn’t believe in McCain’s “Straight Talk” or in his candidacy.

Palin has always sought to identify herself with middle class “hockey moms” of the battle ground states. McCain has even branded Obama as elitist. Now his advisors dress Palin in very expensive clothes from the elite Neiman Marcus and Saks. This will not play well with the women of moderate means in Pennsylvania or other battleground states like Ohio and Missouri. It’s along way from “Pat Nixon’s respectable Republican cloth coat” a reference made in Nixon’s Checkers speech.

At the last debate McCain was telling us that he was concerned with the problems of “Joe the Plumber” having to pay taxes under Obama. Joe makes about $40,000 a year so it is a pipe dream that his taxes would increase under the Obama plan which has a 250,000 threshold. This would hold true even if he got a plumber’s license and purchased the small residential plumbing business he now works for according the Plumbers Council in Ohio.

At the same time the RNC was spending almost four times what Joe makes in a year on Palin’s clothes, hair and makeup.

McCain’s “Straight Talk Express” is a long way from being what McCain describes himself to be. Under him it will be four more years of the Bush Administration’s policies which have put us where we are today, i.e. shoring up banks with middleclass taxpayer dollars, allowing the disgraced management of financial institutions to resign from the mess they have created with multi million dollar severance packages while the lower level employees are losing their jobs. One wonders if the give away to the banks and other financial institutions will ever “trickle down” to Joe mortgage payer in time to save his home from foreclosure.

Sarah Palin’s clothes are emblematic of the fact that McCain would continue the Bush “trickle down’ tax policies that favor the very high income tax payers over the average person. If she was really a middle class hockey mom she would have shopped at Macy’s or some other place that offers clothes off the rack at a reasonable price affordable to those women whose votes she seeks

Labels: Sarah Palin

"THE BEST LAID SCHEMES OF MICE AND MEN OFTEN GO ASTRAY"- "FOR ALL THAT A MAN IS STILL A MAN" Robert Burns. 1759-1796

The turning point or points in the movie are when Bush decides to give up drinking and embrace the Fundamentalist Christian Church. Later this is his voter base. George Sr. refuses to court the Fundamentalists by seeding his speeches with religious code words signifying he accepts the tenets of Fundamentalist Christianity even it means votes in his first Presidential race as urged by W.

Another major turning point in George Jr.’s life is his "engagement" with Karl Rove who engineers his election as Governor of Texas and then President of the United States.

Bush has the common touch and through out the movie we see evidence of this beginning at Yale when he can recite all his fraternity brother's names and nick names during an initiation ritual. Bush sees himself as a good old boy from Texas and that’s how he conducts himself as an individual and a politician. This gives him the ability to bond with many average voters.

George Sr. is played as a patrician Easterner who became a Texas Oilman and politician.

In office Bush is the "decider" and the film tells us that Bush is his own man who makes his own decisions after hearing the facts and arguments from his staff. Even in the case of Cheney he admonishes him not to talk in cabinet meetings without being asked for his view and that he is reminded that W. makes the decisions. Thus dispensing with the view that Cheney is the dark power in control of the younger Bush.

The hard fact there were no WMD in Iraq is brought home to Bush after the invasion. No one on his immediate staff is willing to take the responsibility for not making it clear to him before the invasion that the war was based on belief and guess work as to the existence of WMD in Iraq.

OLIVER STONE DIRECTING THE WAR ROOM SCENE.

Finally a lower level bureaucrat is pushed forward to tell him the truth that it was believed Saddam had WMD because he never denied that he didn’t have them. Further Condoleezza Rice’s office was notified of the fact that there was no hard evidence and the bureaucrat thought it had been conveyed to the President. Rice, played by Thandie Newton in a lukewarm fashion, denies she was aware of the fact there was no solid evidence of WMD before the invasion and if her office received a report on this fact then it was one of thousands and it was overlooked. (This is the same reason she gave for ignoring warninigs about the imminence of 9/11. This is not in the film.)

The lower level bureaucrat resigns. However Condi, National Security Adviser, and George Tenet, head of the CIA, remain in government. Thus there is no accountability at a senior level and Bush lets his personal loyalty to his staff, at this crucial juncture, prevent him from making needed cabinet and personal changes. This good old boy, blind loyalty maybe his Achilles heel. Another is his failure to learn from the mistake of relying on the advice of persons with their own agendas which may be different from his. The same deception was played on Kennedy in the Bay of Pigs fiasco. But he had Bobby to see that heads rolled.

The acting by Brolin, Dreyfus and Cromwell is excellent but some of the supporting actors are not as convincing in their roles. However this does not detract substantially from the credibility of the film.

George Bush is seen as an undisciplined, good time seeking, young man of privilege who is carried forth by his own ambitions, family connections and drive to better George Sr.'s accomplishments and gain his approval first as Governor of Texas. However he remains an immature, naive and unsophisticated man even as President. He surrounds himself with advisers and supporters who are at best second rate people for the job at hand or as in the case of Colin Powell not listened to and thus have little effect on the decisions of state; particularly the major one: the decision to go to war in Iraq.

However Bush is not demonized in the film but portrayed as man in over his head, relying on advisers lacking in moral turpitude and political sophistication. Because of his relationship with his father he is unable and unwilling to go to him for advice and counseling. George Sr. could have been the Bobby Kennedy of his son’s administration, at least as an impartial outsider, and as a result George Jr. lost his way not just on Iraq but in many other ways also. The film infers that George Sr. had Brent Scowcroft, his National Security Advisor, write an op-ed article against the invasion of Iraq. This was ignored by W. and his neo-con advisors who went to war anyway.

Oliver Stone states all the events shown in the film actually took place and are documented by reliable sources. However much of the dialogue was created by script writer Stanley Weiser and Stone from what is known or must have been said.

Labels: Josh Brolin, Movie Review W. Oliver Stone

DIRECTOR: RIDLEY SCOTT. STARRING LEONARDO DICAPRIO, RUSSELL CROWE AND MARK STRONG. SCREENPLAY BY WILLIAM MONAHAN.

SCOTT,CROWE AND DICAPRIO

This film is similar in technique to many other thriller/ espionage type films like the recent Eagle Eye, which is similar to the Jason Bourne films. The movie relies heavily on all seeing electronic surveillance with fast and severe cuts in time and place.

Leonardo DiCaprio plays Roger Ferris a “self described man on the ground” CIA agent stationed in Amman Jordan. Russell Crowe (Ed Hoffman) is his boss living in Washington and directing his every move by cell phone, computer, drone video and maybe a third eye.

Mark Strong is Hami Salaam the very “intelligent” Director of Jordanian Intelligence who allows no one to deceive him not even Ferris. Ferris is tasked with finding the elusive and clever Al-Saleem (Alon Aboutboul), an Islamic terrorist masterminding suicide bombings in Europe that are gnawing at the fabric of the Western alliance against Islamic Fundamentalism.

The Al-Saleem character is portrayed as an ego manic demon bent on destroying Western Civilization. The film might have been more potent if we heard him expound what motivates him and the suicide bombers. And we don’t want to hear it is some corrupt interpretation of the Koran or seventy six virgins. The mullahs and the young kids who sacrifice themselves may believe this, but the older, well educated, politically sophisticated operatives driving terrorism are seeking something else. Maybe power in their own countries and possible beyond. Spielberg made an effort to present the Palestinian point of view in Munich and if Scott had done the same here it would have made this a stronger film.

Suicide bombing, Islamic fundamentalism and Western incompetence, mainly by the higher ups in Washington seems to be a common theme running through thrillers these days. Syriana comes to mind. About the only pictures that seem to deal with Washington in a positive way were Iron Man a comic book movie and Charlie Wilson’s War, but that was a comedy about how one Congress man saved Afghanistan from the Russians. However then there was the blowback after the success of Wilson’s war when the bureaucrats pulled out and left the country to the Taliban. So the bureaucracy was dissed once again by a flick looking for an audience.

Ferris is forced to lie, cheat and sacrifice others in his quest for the wily Al Saleem. Along the way he falls in love with a beautiful Iranian born nurse (Golshifteh Farahani) who is taken hostage byAl-Saleem and for whom Ferris is willing to give up his life in exchange. This is a girl he just met. If all our CIA agents were so chivalrous there would be a lot of job openings. We must suspend our disbelief here, for a moment, that this hard bitten CIA agent who just ended a marriage badly will sacrifice his own life for an Iranian woman who gave him a few rabies shots.

Russell Crowe plays Ed Hoffman the cynical, duplicitous CIA handler, the way he plays this character reminds me of his role in the Insider, who juggles the responsibilities of married life and multiple children in Washington with the job of calling the shots on Ferris’ quest. Ferris does Crowe’s bidding reluctantly most of the time and sometimes not at all as he is his own man too. He is also weary of risking his life, ruining his marriage and jeopardizing his new love life for what he wonders? Is Western Civilization appreciative of his sacrifices. The answer is yes he believes, for now anyway.

The movie is superbly directed. What else from Ridley Scott? He is the man who set the standard for Sci-Fi films with Aliens and then Blade Runner with its dystopian view of the future and a new form of slavery. William Monahan’s script is good but it could have been stronger, Mark Strong gives a strong performance and DiCaprio and Crowe are among the finest actors working today.

The film is great entertainment and there is never a dull moment. Therefore it is well worth seeing however it doesn’t deliver that punch to the gut or that shock to the psyche which would make it a must see movie that your mind will return to again and again as time passes. With all the fire power and money brought to bear on this film that could have been the case. But as Ridley once said “it is always the story Goddamn it.” However when you stock your film with clichés and don’t develop the characters and motivations of the evil ones then it is not the story but the director. Scott by now probably is a cynic or maybe a realist about the nature of the audience. Blade Runner was not a success when first released, but neither was Citizen Kane. Now both are considered classics. That is the reason to see a Ridley Scott movie or an Orson Welles movie when he was alive. You never know what is coming.

Labels: Movie ReviewBody of Lies

Sarah Palin is a charismatic persona much like Ronald Reagan. She is articulate an uses words with clever allusions to bring home her ideas just as Ronald Reagan did. “Hockey mom,” “thanks but no thanks” “put the governor’s jet on E-bay” “I fired the cook” conveys that she a government cost cutter and a rugged, self reliant individualist like Reagan.

He also conveyed these ideas to Americans who thought we could go back to the simpler values as depicted in cowboy movies. We are people from the rugged West where men are men and women are women and by God we know the difference. We are not from the Eastern cities with political corruption and loose morals. Our values are the values of the founding fathers and the pioneers. was the inference to be drawn.

She has the simplistic views of the world just as Reagan did who spoke of his ideal as “America is a bright shinning city on a hill.”(Perhaps his most effective allusion the ideal it embodies could mean anything to any one, but probably it is mostly associated with Heaven on Earth.) There is always a right and wrong that can be clearly perceived with no shades of gray. Good and evil are clear to the average person. ( Mr Gorbachev tear this wall down." to prove the USSR was not on the side of evil.) And God is always on our side because we are guided by faith in God. This was his mantra and doesn’t it sound familiar in the words of the McCain-Palin campaign. They both must have the same speech writers.

Reagan was also guided in by his views that free markets will always end in the best possible result for all people. Democracy will always win out when free men vote their conscience. Government should be small and less obtrusive. Taxes should be reduced to support only the basic functions of government which are police work and national defense. Social programs like Social Security and Medicare sap the strength of America and make people weaklings. People should be rugged individualists.

How many pictures did we see of Reagan on his ranch, poetically named Rancho Del Cielo, in cowboy clothes doing ranch chores like chopping wood or riding a quarter horse.

This ranch was purchased for $527000.00 by the Reagan’s on the advice of their tax and financial advisors in 1974 when he was Governor of California. In 1998 it was sold to a conservative group called the Young America’s For Freedom, headquartered outside Washington, for approximately five million. An approximate ten fold increase in value, much of it due to the improvements the government paid for so it could be used as the Western White House. The exact price seems to be a secret but it had been listed by the Reagan’s for 5.95 million with no takers. Pete Wilson tried to have the Federal government buy it as a memorial for five million. Reagan’s more savvy acolytes nixed that as counter to all Reagan stood for and would ruin his public image. While he had the ranch, beside it being an investment and a tax deduction, it always seemed to lose money as a “business” perhaps it was the cost of the real ranch hands who kept the place up before the government took over this expense. It also gave him great copy for his public persona as a rugged cowboy from the West standing on his own two feet without government assistance. Bush Jr. has tried to use the same public relations ploy with his Crawford Ranch without the same success.

The Young America’s Foundation is preserving Reagan's ranch as a living memorial to Ronald Reagan and his ideas and ideals. In the recent past it also sponsored a “Gala and Dinner” in honor of Ann Coulter. Need more be said?

Now we see Sarah Palin depicted as a rugged individualist, frontier type mom. She has five kids, shoots, skins and eats Moose, runs Alaska as a cost cutter and ruthless maverick eliminating pork and corruption. She levied a windfall tax on the oil companies so she could pay every Alaskan an extra $1200 in addition to the $2000 they already get from oil revenues. Who paid for that? We did. The oil companies are geniuses at passing wind fall taxes and other taxes on to the end users: the American People.

Conservative Republicans are supposed to be against raising taxes. They are unless they aren’t paying them and the little guy is.

She got rid of the governor’s jet. Listing it on E-bay was surely a public relations stunt that didn’t work and it was ultimately sold to a private entity for $500,000.00 loss.

Much has been said about the “bridge to nowhere” as being an example of pork barrel spending on an unneeded project. First she was for it, however when a Washington taxpayers group publicized it as a prime example of pork barrel spending and it was about to be killed she changed horses and was against it. The Reaganesque phrase “thanks but not thanks,” made at her acceptance speech was a deception.

More importantly Alaska, while she was governor, received the funds earmarked for the bridge to be used for other “necessary projects” like the road leading up to the “bridge to no where” which has been built. So the bridge itself appears to be on a back burner waiting for a more opportune time. One wonders what the other necessary projects were that the money went for and why they weren’t designated as an ear mark in the first place?

Palin presents herself in the same way as Reagan but as a rugged individualist living in the wilds of Alaska, hunting and eating moose when she actually lives in a suburban city located 35 miles from Anchorage, the largest city in Alaska. It has approximately 350,000 people in its metropolitan area which includes her home town of Wasilla.

If she’s a rugged individualist then all the other suburban housewife’s who take their children to little league and go to a national park for a vacation are also, with or with out lipstick. In any event are hockey moms nobler than little league moms or any other mom who takes her children to after school sports like basketball, track or swimming? Perhaps hockey is a sport more likely to be played in one of the contested states like Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Colorado or Pennsylvania and some clever speech writer made the reference for the undecided women in those states.

In case you are wondering, 98% of Alaska is owned be the Federal Government so the entire state it is close to being a national park and Alaska receives more Federal tax dollars per capita than any other state. So one could argue it is a true welfare state. So much for the myth of rugged individualists who are purer than city folk because they live in a small town.

This rugged individualist theme of one who communes with nature is a recurrent theme in Republican politics. It is an appeal to the more atavistic among us who yearn for a simpler time while actually the world is becoming more complex due to technology, economics and population growth. The U. S. is being globalized. The cowboys didn’t have to deal with nuclear weapons, AIDS, Asian flu, credit bubbles and world poverty to name a few things. This image is good for cutting taxes and benefits for those less rugged or can’t stand on their own two feet like our seniors, disabled and disadvantaged citizens.

Regan didn’t like paying taxes especially since he was in a higher bracket due to his movie and public relations work. Lowering taxes is always a Republican campaign theme like Palin saying she is a cost cutter and thus eliminating the need for taxes. Just like Reagan, Palin is for shifting taxes to some one else to pay. In her case it was those American’s who must buy gasoline to live and work. Reagan had the discredited Trickle Down Theory of economics. If you lowered taxes on the rich they will create more investment capital. By the rich he meant those large corporations and individuals in the top 5% of taxpayers like himself. The benefits of increased investment by the rich would result in more jobs for the workers, who pay the bulk of taxes anyway, which would result in more revenue through withholding from their wages.

Palin is a bright, new, charismatic, articulate woman on the outside but inside she harbors the tired old policies of deregulation against the public interest as we have seen recently in the sub prime crisis and its aftermath, shifting taxes onto the middle class and away from the wealthy, elimination of programs that benefit all Americans by creating a healthy and stable middle class. The middle class is the basic foundation for American society. It pays the taxes, its sons and daughters serve in the military, it consumes the goods and services that make the economy go, and its labor and intellect makes America go. If any class in America should be protected it is the middle class. Palin’s philosophy of government doesn’t do this.

In the coming months, hopefully the fact the empress has no clothes will be revealed in the debates and in the media.

Labels: Sarah Palin

His Campaign Now That He has Made Concessions To The Christian Right.

McCain's campaign was going nowhere until he named Sarah Palin as running mate in the Vice Presidential Slot. Granted that Sarah Palin is not a pig. She is a pretty, telegenic, charismatic and eloquent hockey mom. The question is will she add the lipstick to his tired old campaign as an alleged reformer of her own party?

McCain is seventy two and there are many questions about his mental and physical capacity to be president with all the physical vigor and mental acuity it will require at those times when the buck will stop at his desk for a decision.

Sarah Palin is no Cheney or is she? Well not in terms of experience and she is not likely to be the eminence grise behind the Presidency as Cheney was or is. However what she lacks in experience she makes up for in poise and confidence, but more and more it is turning out that she has pushed McCain’s candidacy further to the right on gun control, pro- life- anti Roe V. Wade issues, tax cuts, energy and Christian Right values. She is certainly not a moderate.

While she talks about alternative energy sources her main focus is on more drilling in the United States and particularly in Alaska. She doesn’t believe Global Warming is man made so green energy is low on her list of priorities. She has the typical conservative ideas on solving the energy crisis i.e. more drilling now some alternative fuels and hopefully some new technology will turn up to make the problem go away.

Sarah Palin is merely the tired Republican right under a young face. She is not a new force for meaningful change but just McCain’s sop to the Christian fundamentalists and the right he needs as his base in this election. Those are the people who rally to her appearances on McCain’s stops where once he could hardly fill a small arena but now he has crowds flocking to see and hear Palin.

They are not Hillary’s women supporters but female fundamentalist Christians. Previously the Republican right was skeptical when McCain said he would appoint judges who would overturn Roe v.Wade. Now they believe him. She has added the lipstick to his campaign. She is new blood but with still the same old tired Republican/Conservative ideas under a bright young face campaigning as a reformer. Her new face is not necessarily political change or reform it is merely a new person harboring the same Republican rightist principles. In the case of Sarah Palin’s new face it covers a heart that is farther to the right and harder than most Republicans.

This not a new thing with the Republican strategists when their policies and ideas fall on their face with the majority of Americans they reach down for an unknown charismatic personality from nowhere and push him or her forward as the answer to all America’s problems. A reformer who will change the party’s ways. Bush was such a person. Yet when he gained office under the most tenuous conditions he brought into office with him the old guard of lobbyists and business managers to run the government under the same old tired policies of limited government, a big military, less business and environmental regulation and fewer taxes for the upper one percent of taxpayers.

John McCain calls himself a”reformer” but he has been the quintessential Washington insider for over twenty five years supporting the Republican agenda during that time. His Wikipedia page lists his net worth as over forty million dollars and his wife, who owns the Budweiser distributorship in Phoenix, is reputed to be worth more than one hundred million dollars.

One wonders how you accumulate forty million dollars on a naval officers pay and a politicians pay.

McCain defines the dividing line between middle class and rich as someone earning five million dollars. That is a person in the top .01 percent of wage earners. Obvious he is so far removed from the average middle class family that he has lost the common touch he may have once had as a naval pilot.

He has voted with Bush the vast majority of the time and some critics say at least ninety percent of the time. Occasionally he would remonstrate at some earmark or administration proposal but nothing serious. His main claim to fame as a “maverick” is the McCain Feingold campaign finance bill which has been ineffective. Republicans still get their money from lobbyists and business. Obama has seemed to break the Democratic mold of support from unions, trial lawyers and liberal celebrities by raising his money on the internet in small individual donations. He may be the first democratically financed president. Dean touched on this means of campaign finance until he was derailed in Iowa in 2004 by a hostile media.

Remember he also voted for all of Bushes ultra conservative federal judge nominees both for the appellate bench and the Supreme Court and he would give us more of the same if elected. So he has no record to run on except the Bush record of the last eight years which he would essentially continue if elected. However espousing the policies of Bush on Iraq and taxes will not get him elected so he has to call himself the candidate for “change” and “reform.”

When this campaign theme is not effective or believable in comes the new face of Sarah Palin who will “reform” Washington. This is almost laughable because as Vice President she has no power and for most of her life she has backed the Republican right.

Who would really run the government in the sad event of a McCain victory? It would be the same lobbyists and business types drawn from the same pool that ran the Bush government and bureaucracy. McCain is too old and Palin is too inexperienced and unsophisticated to do it herself and as said she has no power and will be relegated to the sidelines doing PR work with the many women’s organization whose meetings require an administration speaker.

McCain says he is going to reform health care with the help of private industries meaning the big insurers, that’s funny since they are the reason why forty percent of Americans lack health insurance. These are people the insurance companies don’t want to insure because they are at the bottom of the risk pyramid or lack the funds to buy their expensive plans.

McCain would let Social Security and Medicare die as big business doesn’t like a competing plan that works and holds them up to comparison. Thus Republicans are trying to sabotage Social
Security and Medicare by underfunding while giving massive tax reductions to big business. These two programs comprise the greatest social successes in the last fifty years for America

He would reform education with charter schools instead of the bolstering public education which is the back bone of the country and another Americaan success story. Public School teachers are unionized to protect themselves from meddling politicians who run on reform platforms for changing the schools although they never taught or administered. It is just a cheap shot at the school unions who mainly support democratic candidates.

Also he attacks trial lawyers who support mostly democratic candidates and therefore are not a part of his Republican base.

He would “reign” in the trial lawyers who in many cases are the last resort of Americans to gain a hearing before a judge or jury who are empowered do something about the inequities in the system.

Can McCain use Sarah Palin to put lipstick on his tired pig of a campaign falsely alleging he is for “change” and that he will kick the rascals out that he has worked and voted with for twenty five year years? I think not because he is one of the rascals and Sarah Palin is a sham candidate considering that McCain first wanted Joe Lieberman, then former Governor Rudd of Pa. (a battle ground state) but they were nixed by McCain's campaign operatives because both these men were pro choice. These men would have also made his candidacy appear more centrist . Milt Romney was rejected because he has taken conflicting positions, first pro choice and then pro life so his operatives (think future plumbers) turned to Palin a last minute desperate gamble to put life in his campaign and a sop the fundamentalist Christian right.

Change candidate or reformer? This spin is an out right falsehood.

Labels: McCain

THE TRUE BELIEVER IN FREE MARKETS AND NO REGULATION

Gerald Greenspan: A true believer in free markets was betrayed by his convictions. The sub prime and the related financial crisis, an unlikely event but still possible, was allowed to occur due to leverage, greed and most of all the failure of the Federal Reserve under Chairman Greenspan to use its power to regulate the sub prime market in particular and the mortgage market in general.

Barney Frank(D)MA has said that Congress passed legislation allowing the Federal Reserve to regulate the mortgage industry in the Nineties. However, Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, a diehard free market advocate, refused to use the regulatory powers of the Fed even to curb fraud in mortgage lending much less to set out guidelines for sub prime lending. The subsequent sub prime mortgage crisis and the spread of this crisis throughout the banking system has nearly brought down the system he was appointed to protect.

Greenspan has answered his critics by saying the role of regulation has been tried before and it doesn’t work. Further he has also stated that he was not fully cognizant on the extent of the bubble until 2007. These statements from a man of the sophistication of Greenspan don't ring true.

Wikipedia discusses the controversy noting as follows:

“On March 17, 2008 Alan Greenspan wrote an article for the Financial Times Economists’ Forum entitled “We will never have a perfect model of risk“, in which he argued: “We will never be able to anticipate all discontinuities in financial markets.” He concluded: “It is important, indeed crucial, that any reforms in, and adjustments to, the structure of markets and regulation not inhibit our most reliable and effective safeguards against cumulative economic failure: market flexibility and open competition.” The article attracted a number of critical responses from forum contributors, which consists of some of the world’s leading economists (including two Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences winners, Edmund Phelps and Joseph Stiglitz), who, finding causation between Greenspan's policies and the discontinuities in financial markets that followed, criticized Greenspan mainly for what many believed to be his unbalanced and immovable ideological suppositions about global capitalism and free competitive markets. For example, one forum contributor, Paul de Grauwe, wrote: “Greenspan’s article is a smokescreen to hide his own responsibility in making the financial crisis possible. Greenspan, who was at the helm of the most important monetary institution in the world, failed to take his responsibility to supervise the financial markets blinded as he, and his colleagues, were by a belief that markets and bankers know better than governments.” Other notable critics included J.Bradford Delong, Alice Rivlin, Richard Werner, Christopher Whalen, Michael Hudson, and Willem Buiter."

On April 6, Greenspan responded to his critics in a follow-up article entitled, “A response to my critics,” in which he rigorously defended his ideology as applied to his conceptual and policy framework, which, among other things, prohibited him from exerting real pressure against the burgeoning housing bubble or, in his words, "leaning against the wind," (which became a catchphrase used during the discussion). Greenspan argued, "My view of the range of dispersion of outcomes has been shaken, but not my judgment that free competitive markets are by far the unrivaled way to organize economies." He concluded: "We have tried regulation ranging from heavy to central planning. None meaningfully worked. Do we wish to retest the evidence?"

The Pundits at Wikipedia further stated as follows follows:

“In the wake of the sub prime mortgage and credit crisis Greenspan admitted that there was a Bubble in the US housing market in 2007 and (forecast) "large double digit declines" in home values larger than most people expect." However, Greenspan also noted, “I really didn't get it until very late in 2005 and 2006.”

Again Greenspan hung himself with his own words:

“In a speech in February 2004, Greenspan suggested that more homeowners should consider taking out Adjustable Rate Mortgages (ARMS) where the interest rate adjusts itself to the current interest in the market. The Fed's own funds rate was at an all-time-low of 1%. A few months after his recommendation, Greenspan began raising interest rates, in a series of rate hikes that would bring the funds rate to 5.25% about two years later. Hence, Greenspan's recommendation came at a time when interest rates bottomed out making it a particularly bad time to take out an ARM. A triggering factor in the 2007 sub prime mortgage financial crisis (was the) many sub prime ARMS that reset at much higher interest rates than what the borrower paid during the first few years of the mortgage.”

And again Greenspan is quoted as saying in an April 2005 speech:

"Innovation has brought about a multitude of new products, such as sub prime loans and niche credit programs for immigrants. Such developments are representative of the market responses that have driven the financial services industry throughout the history of our country … With these advances in technology, lenders have taken advantage of credit-scoring models and other techniques for efficiently extending credit to a broader spectrum of consumers. … Where once more-marginal applicants would simply have been denied credit, lenders are now able to quite efficiently judge the risk posed by individual applicants and to price that risk appropriately. These improvements have led to rapid growth in sub prime mortgage lending; indeed, today sub prime mortgages account for roughly 10 percent of the number of all mortgages
outstanding, up from just 1 or 2 percent in the early 1990s."

^{These positions were followed by the disastrous sub prime market collapse in March of 2007. Where was the invisible hand that moderates markets and prevents things from becoming outright disasters? Was the invisible hand a figment of Adam Smith’s and John Locke’s imaginations? It works under some conditions but the forces in play during the sub prime rise and collapse, namely low global interest rates, securitization of mortgages, investor and lender fraud and an insatiable demand by financial institutions, pension funds and others for these devices whose risk was wrongly assessed by the rating firms gave Wall Street the opening to manipulate and overwhelm the skeptics and opposing market forces.}

^{This is a prime example and a refutation of Greenspan's and others belief that a free market will always right itself. Now belatedly the Federal government is bailing out mortgage lenders, investment banks and even fraudulent borrowers and lenders with taxpayer’s money and lo and behold the Fed has begun to regulate the mortgage industry.}

^{Free markets don’t always work as in the present instance where it was manipulated by Wall Street. Therefore and in some cases the government must step in and regulate for the good of all. The great question is when to regulate and how much to regulate not no regulation at all. That’s what we pay bureaucrats like Mr. Greenspan to know and his blind advocacy of free markets in this case only begot license and fraud in the market to the detriment of the American people.}

^{The lesson Wall Street will take away from this catastrophe is: We Can Be as Profligate And In Many Cases Fraudulent As Possible And If It Threatens The Financial System the United States Government Will Bail Us Out.}

Labels: ALAN GREENSPAN

On July 31, 2008 Judge Bates of the Federal District Court found that former Presidential Counselor Harriet Miers and present Chief Of Staff Josh Bolton must appear before the House Judiciary Committee and answer questions and produce documents about the politicalization of the Justice Department, the firing of the nine U.S. Attorneys and presumably who Monica Goodling, Justice Department liaison with the White House, was liaising with when she was vetting Assistant U.S. attorneys and other people at Justice along political, religious and sexual orientation lines. Obviously she was too young and too ignorant to commit the gross injustices and crimes she did without the direction of a more devious and corrupt mentor.

Judge Bates found that there is no blanket Presidential Executive Privilege Immunity and the House Judiciary Committee could subpoena White House personnel for questioning and production of documents on their activities while in office. Indeed there are no laws justifying the conduct of these White House employees. They can appear and either invoke the Fifth Amendment Privilege against self incrimination or possibly assert the Presidential Privilege again. However Judge Bates has said this objection only applies in extreme cases as in national security and not in the present case.

Karl Rove also failed to appear and give testimony saying he was protected by Presidential Privilege. The Judiciary Committee has voted to request a contempt citation for him. Currently the request is waiting for Nancy Pelosi to call a full vote by the House on a contempt citation as was done in the Miers and Fielding cases. Presumably after Judge Bates’s decision she will if Rove doesn’t appear and testify.

Attorney General Mukasky who was appointed and approved by Congress on the promise that he would clean up the Justice Department refused to criminally enforce the Miers and Fielding citation. Thus the matter went to Federal District Court on civil contempt grounds. Rove raised the same privilege on the issue of the politicization of the Justice Department and other matters and failed to appear as required on the same basis as Miers and Bolton.

Miers and Bolton may appeal the judge’s decision. However if they do, and the appellate court rules against them after the Bush administration has left office they will not be in a position to seek a presidential pardon.

However Bush may pardon them anyway for any crimes they may have committed while in office when he is about to leave office and before a ruling. This would be politically explosive and whether he will do this remains to be seen. It could be seen as a gross disregard and contempt for the rule of law as seen in the Watergate case.

It would also be an admission of wrongdoing by his White House and it could be grounds for the appointment of a special prosecutor by who ever is the new attorney general to delve into Bush's his own conduct in the controversy.

Chairman Conyer's has already sent letters to the lawyers for Rove, Miers and Bolton for compliance with the court's order.*

The ball is in Miers, Bolton and Rove's court as to whether they will appear and testify or appeal.

ORDER

Upon consideration of [16] defendants’ motion to dismiss and [14] plaintiff’s motion for partial summary judgment, the oppositions and replies thereto, the various amicus briefs filed in this matter, the entire record herein, the hearing on June 23, 2008, and for the reasons identified in the Memorandum Opinion issued on this date, it is hereby

1. ORDERED that defendants’ [16] motion to dismiss is DENIED; it is further

2. ORDERED that plaintiff’s [14] motion for partial summary judgment is GRANTED IN PART; it is further

3. DECLARED that Harriet Miers is not immune from compelled congressional process; she is legally required to testify pursuant to a duly issued congressional subpoena from plaintiff; and Ms. Miers may invoke executive privilege in response to specific questions as appropriate; it is further

4. ORDERED that Joshua Bolten and Ms. Miers shall produce all non-privileged documents requested by the applicable subpoenas and shall provide to plaintiff a specific description of any documents withheld from production on the basis of
executive privilege consistent with the terms of the Memorandum Opinion issued on this date; and it is further

5. ORDERED that the parties shall appear at a status call in this matter at 9:15 a.m.on August 27, 2008.

SO ORDERED.

/s/
JOHN D. BATES
UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
Date: July 31, 2008

Labels: Rove immunity court decision on miers and Bolton

Karl Rove Deliberately Failed To Appear Before A House Judiciary Subcommittee On July 10, 2008 After Being Supboened To Appear. The Ball Is Now In Chairman John Conyers' Court To Request A Criminal Contempt Of Congress Citation And For Enforcement by The Bush Justice Department. Enforcement By Attorney General Mukasky Is Unlikely To Happen Since He has Already Refused To Enforce Similar Citations Against Harriet Miers And Fred Fielding Alleging That The Parties Had Claimed Executive Privilege And That Therefore No Crime Had Been Committed. Rove Is Refusing To Appear On Similar Grounds. See:

Labels: Karl Rove

HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS AND PRODUCERS STILL TURN THEIR BACKS ON TRUMBO FILM AND THE ISSUES SURROUNDING THE BLACKLIST.

This film although raising issues central to our democracy seems to have been produced on a shoe string, despite the appearance of many prominent actors, probable at their own expense, to read Dalton Trumbo’s letters and words.

The subject of course is the blacklist and how it was used to destroy the Hollywood Ten by denying them the right to work. Trumbo blamed the studios and producers for not standing up to the House Un-American Activities Committee by not blacklisting those who refused to declare whether they had ever belonged to the Communist Party and name others whom they were aware of being members.

Trumbo, ever the idealist and child of the Great Depression, had been a member of the Communist Party USA in 1943 when Russia was an American ally in the war against the fascist powers in Europe.

In 1947 Trumbo refused to answer questions by raising the First Amendment Freedom Of Speech clause as protecting him from disclosing his political ideas and beliefs. He also refused to take the Fifth Amendment Right Against Self Incrimination on the grounds he had committed no crime.

Of course the Smith Act, passed in 1940, made it a crime to advocate the violent overthrow of the government. This Act was passed for the criminal prosecution of Communist Party members. So Trumbo was between a rock and a hard place. If he testified he was guilty of the Smith Act and if he didn’t he was guilty of Contempt of Congress. In his case he was convicted of contempt and spent eleven months in prison.

The sad part was that he was unemployable because of the blacklist. The picture depicts the consequences of the blacklist on Trumbo, his wife and children and also the others who were blacklisted.

Ironically J. Parnell Thomas the chairman of HUAC at the time was convicted of fraud and served time in the same prison as some of the Hollywood Ten.

Joan Allen, Brian Dennehy, Michael Douglas, Paul Giamatti, Nathan Lane, Liam Neeson, David Strathairn, Josh Lucas and Donald Sutherland appear in the picture and read Trumbo’s eloquent letters and writings expressing his feeling about the matter.

One of the most salient parts of the movie is a scene from Spartacus which was based on Trumbo’s script. The Roman general tells the conquered slaves if they will identify Spartacus they would not be crucified. Where upon each of the slaves stands and says he is Spartacus.

The Smith Act is still on the books and has never been declared unconstitutional so lest you think the issues raised in this film are in the past the problem is still with us. Thus a man’s ideas as opposed to his acts can still make him a criminal.

This picture could have had wider appeal and had a wider release if it had better financing and marketing. It seems the powers that be in Hollywood would prefer this low budget documentary to briefly flower and die on the art house circuit and then go away as it is a testament to the Studio’s and producer’s failure to stand up and be counted when the chips were down. This is occurring when millions see fantasy CGI action pictures while a film addressing real abuses of power by the government is seen by a few thousand.

All and all it is a film worth seeing because just as Trumbo and hundreds of others lost their freedom and financial well being in the Forties and Fifties it can happen again and probably is right now under the Bush Justice Department. This is particularly true when you consider some of the things that have been done under the Patriot Act and the way the Bush Justice Department has used the Rico Law on perceived political enemies.

Labels: Trumbo Film

Scott McClellan Voluntarily Appeared Before House Judiciary Committee And Testified About The Valerie Plame Leak. Doesn’t Think Bush Was Involved, Cheney He Doesn’t Know If Involved. Basically It Was A Book Promotion.

On Friday, June 20, 2008 Scott McClellan appeared before the House Judiciary Committee voluntarily and testified under oath as to his knowledge about the leak of C.I.A. agent Valerie Plame’s name to the press. He testified he didn’t believe President Bush either knew or was involved in the leak. As to Vice President Cheney’s role he didn’t know the extent if any. He referred to Patrick Fitzgerald’s statement that the conduct of Scooter Libbey , Cheney’s aide, cast a cloud over the Vice President’s office. Fitzgerald was the prosecutor in the Libbey case.

Libbey was convicted of obstruction of justice and lying to the FBI but not for the disclosure of Plame’s identity to the press.

McClellan testified that the White House and the Vice President have not been forthright in disclosing the details and motivation for the Plame disclosure.

While concurring with the validity of the House Judiciary Committees investigation into the firing of the U.S. Attorneys and the Plame leak he had nothing of a substantive nature to add to the investigation

Basically he seems to have been given an opportunity to publicize his book.

Labels: Scott McClellan

In former presidential spokesperson Scott McClellan’s recent book, What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception he discusses the Valerie Plame affair, over which Scooter Libbey was convicted of one count of obstruction, two counts of perjury and one count of lying to the FBI about how he learned Plame’s identity and whom he told. Now Chairman Conyers has invited McClellan to testify under oath before the House Judiciary Committee. In a press release Representative Conyers said “In his book, Mr. McClellan suggests that senior White House officials may have obstructed justice and engaged in a cover-up regarding the Valerie Plame leak. This alleged activity could well extend beyond the scope of the offenses for which Scooter Libby has been convicted and deserves further attention.”

Representative Conyers further said "I find Mr. McClellan's revelations about attempts to cover-up the Valerie Plame leak extremely troubling. Particularly disturbing is McClellan's assertion that he was specifically directed by Andy Card to 'vouch' for Scooter Libby after the investigation had begun, which, if true, could amount to obstruction of justice beyond that for which Mr. Libby has already been convicted.”

McClellan may have made a mistake in trying to front run the Bush Administration’s final days with a tell all book criticizing the administrations management of the news.

The letter inviting McClellan to testify on June 20^th 2008 is usually a precursor to a subpoena if the “invitee” fails to agree to appear and testify.

After refusing to appear voluntarily, Karl Rove has been subpoenaed to testify before the House Judiciary Committee regarding the politicization of the Department Of Justice and the prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman . Previously it was noted in an Article entitled “WILL MUKASEY APPOINT A SPECIAL PROSECUTOR OR IS HE ANOTHER GONZALES?” posted Tuesday, April 01, 2008 as follows;

"Siegelman after serving nine months in Federal Prison has been released on bond by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals pending resolution of his appeal. This conviction and others is under investigation by the House Judiciary Committee for the practice of targeting Democrats by the Bush Justice Department. Jill Simpson a Republican attorney who had worked for Mr. Siegelman’s opponent in the 2002 election, which Siegelman lost by 2300 votes, has given a sworn affidavit stating that an associate of Karl Rove had assured her that Mr. Rove and two U.S. Attorney were “going to take care of Mr. Siegelman.” Forty four states attorneys general signed a petition urging the Judiciary Committee to investigate the prosecution, conviction and detention of Mr. Siegelman in that there were allegations of jury tampering and other irregularities connected with his trial and conviction.”

Rove has been subpoenaed to testify before the Committee on July 10, 2008. Rove who is a private citizen is represented by Robert Luskin Esq. of Patton Boggs LLP. Previously Harriet Miers, the former Presidential Counselor and Fred Fielding Bush’s Chief of Staff were subpoenaed and failed to appear on a similar issue. The Attorney General refused to enforce the subpoenas by a criminal contempt action and the matter is now the subject of a civil contempt suit filed in Federal District Court. They are being defended by the Justice Department under the theories of Executive Privilege and Separation Of Powers . Rove through his attorney has claimed the same protections.

I t now remains to be seen if Rove will appear or like Miers and Fielding, not appear at all, not even to refuse to answer question on the basis of privilege.

Executive Privilege is an unlikely defense. No allegation was made in correspondence between the Committee and Mr. Luskin that Mr. Rove’s testimony was related to advice given the President and therefore it is doubtful the privilege would apply. The Separation Of Powers defense is weak and not well taken.

Also even in instances where Executive Privilege might apply there is a balancing test weighing the need for privilege over the need for the information to formulate necessary legislation.

These defenses, in the immortal words of John Nance Garner, (are) "not worth a warm bucket of piss."

However, Mukasey and the members of the Federalist Society on the bench will protect him. If not then Bush will pardon him.

Mr. Rove could finally face justice for his actions if Obama is elected President and a new Attorney General is appointed. However as said Bush will pardon him before leaves the White House.

Labels: Karl Rove

This film written by Danny Strong and directed by Jay Roach is about the 2000 Florida recount. The election was ultimately decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in Bush v. Gore in favor of George W. Bush by a five to four vote along party lines. The film stars Kevin Spacey , as Ron Klain, Gore's demoted chief of staff who rises to be in charge of the confrontation; Bob Balaban, as Ben Ginsberg the Bush campaigns chief counsel; Ed Begley, Jr. as David Boies a lawyer who handles the appellate work for the Democrats; Laura Dern, the Florida Republican Secretary of State; John Hurt as Warren Christopher, Democratic eminence grise who abandons the field because of a family illness; Denis Leary, as Michael Whouley, chief Gore field operative; Bruce McGill as Mac Stipanovich a Republican operative ( akin to a Nixon plumber) and Tom Wilkinson as Jim Baker, The legal and tactical chief of the Bush side. Baker filed a federal action early on based on the theory that Bush's civil rights had been violated that was the basis of the later appeal to the Supreme Court. Irony of ironies.

The premise of this film is that the Florida vote was too close to call because of the flawed mechanical counting machines that were ineffective in resolving a difference of less that .05 percent between the candidates. Because of this the U.S. Supreme Court decided the election along party lines which should have been decided by the will of the voters.

Scalia, Thomas, O'Conner, Kennedy and Rehnquist, all Republican appointees, were in the majority while Ginsberg and Breyer, Democratic appointees and Souter (by George H.W. Bush) and Stevens, Republican appointees where in the minority. The kicker was that three of the majority, Scalia, Thomas and Rehnquist were previously on record as holding that elections were the province of the states and state law. In this case the majority limited their ruling to the facts in this case. Therefore the holding cannot be cited as precedent. This gives rise to the inference that this was a political decision not a legal one.

The film reveals many fascinating facts. Katherine Harris had Mac Stipanovich in her office advising her how to manage the conflict in Bush's favor. She is painted as a vacuous Republican without the intellectual, moral and ethical qualities to carry out the duties of a Secretary of State. Laura Dern's characterization of her is over the top as is Tom Wilkinson’s depiction of Jim Baker as a Republican strategist who is willing to take to the streets in order to win the election. It is revealed that Baker was a Democrat until age forty when his first wife died and he became a George H.W.Bush supporter. Baker comes off as the astute strategist who sees that the dispute will ultimately end in the Supreme Court where the Republicans had many friends. Boies the Democratic lawyer believes that the matter will be settled in the state courts on settled legal principles.

We see Republican operatives, flown in on an Enron jet, mob the Miami-Dade election offices to shut down a hand recount ordered by the Florida Supreme Court. Republican public relations experts call in colorful characters to parade the Bush mantra of “no recount” in front of the cable and network cameras massed outside the Florida Supreme Court. Bob Dole and other Republican leaders are seen on talk shows and the news condemning the recount because it was "impossible" to discern a voters intent by hanging chad or dimpled ballots.

The film explains that dimpled and hanging chad on punch ballots are not always the fault of the voter. Problems arise because there is a build up of chad from prior voters in the machine that prevent subsequent voters being able to fully detach the chad signifying their vote. However in a hand recount it can be discerned that the voter intended to punch a chad signifying a vote for a particular candidate. The Republican effort was to prevent a hand recount at all costs.

Gore lost Florida long before Election Day because Secretary Of State Harris purged twenty thousand African-American voters from the rolls for allegedly being a convicted felons or having a name similar to a convicted felon. This was not learned until the excluded persons went to vote. Also there was no recourse by that time. Now if a person’s right to vote is challenged he is allowed to complete a provisional ballot and then have the matter adjudicated. The way Harris purged the rolls no one knew until he or she showed up to the polls that they had been purged and there and was no way of submitting a tentative ballot and having the issue adjudicated.

So Harris excluded twenty thousand and Blacks by fiat with no right of recourse if a mistake had been made. In the film a black minister named Willie Williams was prevented from voting because his name was similar to William Williams an allegedly convicted felon. What the real status of these persons was no one knew because an outside software company was hired by Harris for millions of dollars to conduct the purge of registered voters. How the twenty thousand voters would have voted is unknown except African Americans tend to vote Democratic. Harris comes across as so unethical and partisan that the purge was obviously done to benefit the Republican side. (In 2004 Jeb Bush ordered 48000 thousand persons purged as felons. However this was stopped by lawsuits before the election.)

Gore also had to contend with Ralph Nader who received ninety thousand votes most of which would have gone to him if Nader was not a third party candidate. However this fact was not discussed in the film

Finally voters in Palm Beach County cast six thousand votes for Pat Buchanan which even he said must have been a mistake because of the confusing butterfly ballots. The county is heavenly populated by retired Jewish Democrats who would not have voted for conservative Buchanan except for the fact of the confusing butterfly ballot.

Thus Florida should have been a Democratic state if the aforesaid forces had not come into play allowing the matter to be decided on a partisan basis by the conservative justices of the Supreme Court. The hand recount had been stopped by the Supreme court while they considered the matter and then the Court declared there wasn't enough time for a recount to be accomplished within the Florida statutory deadline which effectively decided the election for Bush

This result occurred despite the fact that Gore won the national popular vote.

This film will probably be released to DVD later for those who don't subscribe to HBO

Labels: Movie Review: Recount.