Thank You, George Clooney!:
Max Boot exposes Clooney's neo-con stripes
Max Boot, who writes a weekly neo-con article for the LA Times, reviews three of George Clooney's movies from a neo-con POV.
Syriana - It's a protest against the influence of Big Oil on U.S. foreign policy. Neocons couldn't agree more. They argue that the policy supported by the oil companies — backing Middle Eastern despots — is leading us to ruin. It only helps create anti-American suicide bombers
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The Peacemaker - shake(s) the nation out of its post-Cold War complacency by showing how easily terrorists could smuggle a nuclear bomb into the U.S. Neocons in the 1990s were arguing for a more ruthless anti-terrorist policy. Your character, Lt. Col. Thomas Devoe, didn't let legal niceties stop him from saving New York.
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Three Kings - the movie follows your attempts to get a group of 55 Shiites safely across the border to a refugee camp in Iran. Saving them isn't cheap — you lose most of your bullion, one of your soldiers is killed and another is badly wounded — but it's the right thing to do.
The message is clear: The U.S. should pursue its ideals in foreign policy, not simply try to protect its strategic or economic interests. Believe it or not, that is the essence of modern neoconservatism. And that is precisely the policy that President Bush has been following in Iraq, notwithstanding the sniping he's received from you and your friends.
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Anybody who wonders what U.S. troops are doing in Iraq today should rent "Three Kings." It makes an ironclad moral case for the invasion.
Good work, George. I'm looking forward to your next project: "Leo! The Leo Strauss Story."
posted by Jay Cline | 3:03 PM
1 Comments:
I conclude from Max Boot's touching letter to George Clooney ("Best supporting neocon," Los Angles Times, March 15, 2006) that it takes one to know one--a neocon that is. Right-winger Boot, formerly of the Wall Street Journal and now spending time at the Council of Foreign Ratlines, demonstrates an amazing capacity to spot a fellow neocon in a little suspected place, a silver-screen image projected out of liberal Hollywood.
Boot's own "neocondom" outing into the safe politics of the rich and powerful came in a column he wrote for the December 30, 2002 Wall Street Journal. He starts his confession by asking, "What the Heck Is a Neocon?" and then admits, "I suppose that makes George W. Bush a neocon. If it's good enough for the president, it's good enough for me."
I think that Boot's fellow neocons of Hollywood let him down this year in their award of the Oscar for best supporting actor. It would have better gone to George W. Bush. And for his leading role, Dick Cheney should have been recognized as best actor. His shoot-my-buddy improvisation--foreshadowed by a beer for lunch and trailered with a twenty-four-hour delay in reporting--added a Texas-two-step dimension to In Cold Blood. And even without makeup, Cheney looks more like Truman Capote.
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