dub-ya

The other day I watched W., Oliver Stone’s biographical film on the rise and fall of President George W. Bush. It has some good acting, and great comedy, but I found it hard to get around the politics of the film. It is completely patronizing in its attitude towards Bush, and pretty unforgiving.

The film cuts between a young Bush, wild, alcoholic and aimless, and Bush during his presidency, with repeated suggestions that – even though he appears to have changed, sobering up and finding a drive – at his core he is the same weak, reckless boy looking for his father’s approval.

Stone’s Bush is very emotionally vulnerable – always searching for reassurance. And this is his motivation for the presidency – he needs to earn his father’s recognition, he needs to hear the crowds cheering him, he needs to be recognized as the boss. Other than problems with insecurity and his ego, Bush is also presented as pretty dim-witted, reckless, irresponsible and, worst of all, religious. I don’t know if it was intentional, but Josh Brolin’s depiction of Bush is also really annoying. His one redeeming feature is his sincerity.

Others in the Bush administration are equally repulsive in the film: Condoleezza Rice is a spineless suck-up, whose only role in the administration is to feed Bush’s ego; Dick Cheney is completely unethical and spiteful; Donald Rumsfeld is a blind idealist. The exception is the sympathy given to Colin Powell, who, though perceptive and honorable, eventually compromises his beliefs in supporting of the hapless Bush.

I wasn’t hoping for something even-handed, and I certainly didn't want a story of glory and triumph invented for Bush, but I do tire at what seem like cheap shots at the guy. Okay, so maybe he wasn’t cut out for presidency, but he did have his moments.

I don’t think he was as self-serving as Oliver Stone makes out – I think he really cared about freedom, justice, America, and God. Frankly, the guy could be inspiring in his vision. Like in his speech at Goree Island (a place infamously associated with the American slave trade):

In America, enslaved Africans learned the story of the exodus from Egypt and set their own hearts on a promised land of freedom. Enslaved Africans discovered a suffering Savior and found he was more like themselves than their masters. Enslaved Africans heard the ringing promises of the Declaration of Independence and asked the self-evident question, then why not me?

In the year of America's founding, a man named Olaudah Equiano was taken in bondage to the New World. He witnessed all of slavery's cruelties, the ruthless and the petty. He also saw beyond the slave-holding piety of the time to a higher standard of humanity. "God tells us," wrote Equiano, "that the oppressor and the oppressed are both in His hands. And if these are not the poor, the broken-hearted, the blind, the captive, the bruised which our Savior speaks of, who are they?"

Down through the years, African Americans have upheld the ideals of America by exposing laws and habits contradicting those ideals. The rights of African Americans were not the gift of those in authority. Those rights were granted by the Author of Life, and regained by the persistence and courage of African Americans, themselves.

Now in Obama era, it seems Bush’s sole legacy is the failed Iraq War and all those old Bushisms, and as important it is to learn from the former and enjoy the latter, surely there is cause for balance.

For example, consider this:

Many people saw the 2004 presidential election as pitting Americans who are religious against those who are not. An article by Steven Waldman in the online magazine Slate provides some perspective on the divide:

"As you may already know, one of America's two political parties is extremely religious. Sixty-one percent of this party's voters say they pray daily or more often. An astounding 92 percent of them believe in life after death. And there's a hard-core subgroup in this party of super-religious Christian zealots. Very conservative on gay marriage, half of the members of this subgroup believe Bush uses too little religious rhetoric, and 51 percent of them believe God gave Israel to the Jews and that its existence fulfills the prophecy about the second coming of Jesus."

The group that Waldman is talking about is Democrats; the hard-core subgroup is African-American Democrats.

Bush wasn’t elected by political or religious extremists – post-9/11 he had an unprecedented approval rating of 90%. Obama has his work cut out patching up the holes Bush left behind, but let’s keep some perspective.