Is this another "The American people are too stupid to realize what a great leader Bush is" article from a staunch independent moderate centrist?

His connections are loose as hell. I'm going to file this one in the "that's quite a stretch" drawer. Right next too the "Virgin Mary on my toast/window/butt pimple" reports.

gatsome: His connections are loose as hell. I'm going to file this one in the "that's quite a stretch" drawer. Right next too the "Virgin Mary on my toast/window/butt pimple" reports.

just so long as you don't group the jesus anus in there.



that's the real deal.

/seriously, wtf fark, that's 0/3 this morning

There seems to me no question that the Batman film "The Dark Knight," currently breaking every box office record in history, is at some level a paean of praise to the fortitude and moral courage that has been shown by George W. Bush in this time of terror and war. Like W, Batman is vilified and despised for confronting terrorists in the only terms they understand. Like W, Batman sometimes has to push the boundaries of civil rights to deal with an emergency, certain that he will re-establish those boundaries when the emergency is past.

It's hard not to read this as satire.

Batman's results are usually better.

Why is it then that left-wingers feel free to make their films direct and realistic, whereas Hollywood conservatives have to put on a mask in order to speak what they know to be the truth? Why is it, indeed, that the conservative values that power our defense -- values like morality, faith, self-sacrifice and the nobility of fighting for the right -- only appear in fantasy or comic-inspired films like "300," "Lord of the Rings," "Narnia," "Spiderman 3" and now "The Dark Knight"?

The moment filmmakers take on the problem of Islamic terrorism in realistic films, suddenly those values vanish. The good guys become indistinguishable from the bad guys, and we end up denigrating the very heroes who defend us. Why should this be?



Maybe because those are fantasies.

sigdiamond2000
It's hard not to read this as satire.

That or I'm surprised this moran was able to dress himself and find his way to work.

Among other stupidities, he's actually arguing that the simple morality of superhero movies is like real life.

i don't think the author of TFA understands that batman is an anti-hero, and often used as a vehicle for questioning the ultimate morality and effectiveness of his tactics.

That also makes me wonder... how long has the WSJ's opinion page been so farking devoid of anything resembling intelligence? It is possible to write an intelligent, thoughtful opinion piece from a conservative point of view. One would think if any newspaper would contain such work, one with the long history of the WSJ would be that paper. Instead we get this shiat.

Nabb1: Batman's results are usually better.

Because its fiction... only superman can stop speeding bullets, only the flash can out run a car, and only batman can resist the corruption of his technological arsenal.

This is probably the most retarded article I've read in a long time.

burndtdan: gatsome: His connections are loose as hell. I'm going to file this one in the "that's quite a stretch" drawer. Right next too the "Virgin Mary on my toast/window/butt pimple" reports.

just so long as you don't group the jesus anus in there.

Oh my god, wtf... I thought I was getting too far out there with butt pimple.

Now I'm going to have to go with anal fissures.



that's the real deal.

Jaboobinator: Maybe because those are fantasies.

That

The moment filmmakers take on the problem of Islamic terrorism in realistic films, suddenly those values vanish. The good guys become indistinguishable from the bad guys, and we end up denigrating the very heroes who defend us. Why should this be?

Also see: Rendition

Apparently I'm not getting far enough out of previous quotes though.

Wow. The Wall Street Journal published this?

I can just see Bush putting on his underroos and tying a towel around his neck, running around the Oval Office saying "Wee! I'm batman! The Wall Street Journal said so!"

The Icelander: I can just see Bush putting on his underroos and tying a towel around his neck, running around the Oval Office saying "Wee! I'm batman! The Wall Street Journal said so!"



i am the bat.

Left and right, all Americans know that freedom is better than slavery, that love is better than hate, kindness better than cruelty, tolerance better than bigotry. We don't always know how we know these things, and yet mysteriously we know them nonetheless.

The true complexity arises when we must defend these values in a world that does not universally embrace them -- when we reach the place where we must be intolerant in order to defend tolerance, or unkind in order to defend kindness, or hateful in order to defend what we love.

I don't get this... If morality is as well defined as this guy says it is, then why do we ever have to stick up for our morals? We would only have to do this if someone else had a different moral code than us.

As loong as everyone else is throwing in long quotes from TFA, I might as well drop this in, which pretty much completes teh whole article:

And when our artistic community is ready to show that sometimes men must kill in order to preserve life; that sometimes they must violate their values in order to maintain those values; and that while movie stars may strut in the bright light of our adulation for pretending to be heroes, true heroes often must slink in the shadows, slump-shouldered and despised -- then and only then will we be able to pay President Bush his due and make good and true films about the war on terror.


Yes, one day they will be able to clone John Wayne.


/I hope we don't "pay Bush his due," since that would involve taking away his pension, and that would be wrong.

Is it any coincidence that Bush and Batman have never been photographed together? Hmmm...

/I always knew it

that sometimes they must violate their values in order to maintain those values

"It became necessary to destroy the village in order to save it."

"Left and right, all Americans know that freedom is better than slavery, that love is better than hate, kindness better than cruelty, tolerance better than bigotry. We don't always know how we know these things, and yet mysteriously we know them nonetheless."

Riiight, 'cause if there's anything modern conservatives* are known for, it's love, kindness and tolerance. ROTFLMAO!!!

*modern conservatives are neither modern nor conservative. discuss.

Was I the only one surprised to see "OMG teh Batman is the GWOT!!!" after the movie came out? Batman kicking the Joker's ass is Batman kicking the Joker's ass. It's not an allegory for how we must conduct ourselves against terrorists.

I don't think this guy watched the same movie that the rest of the world did.

If I had been given 185million dollars to make a film, with the stipulation that if it did not make a profit Universal studios would destroy my career forever, the last thing I would do is make it a subtle allegory to the actions of a man that is liked by about one in five people.

antidisestablishmentarianism: I don't think this guy watched the same movie that the rest of the world did.

He did. He just didn't pay close attention.

Nuance has never really been the strong suit of the Right.

Bush is planning on burning down a forest in Burma?

Like W, Batman sometimes has to push the boundaries of civil rights to deal with an emergency, certain that he will re-establish those boundaries when the emergency is past.

Batman actually DID re-establish those boundaries, and the emergency hadn't really passed completely. The Joker was only arrested, which leaves open the possibility that he could break free and do it all over again. But Batman and Fox DID destroy that cell phone spy program. What has the Bush administration done to put back the civil liberties they destroyed (not "push[ed] the boundaries of," but destroyed).

Why is it, indeed, that the conservative values that power our defense -- values like morality, faith, self-sacrifice and the nobility of fighting for the right -- only appear in fantasy or comic-inspired films like "300," "Lord of the Rings," "Narnia," "Spiderman 3" and now "The Dark Knight"?

Because the way some conservative define those values only work well in fiction?

Leftists frequently complain that right-wing morality is simplistic. Morality is relative, they say; nuanced, complex. They're wrong, of course, even on their own terms.

Morality being nuanced and complex is NOT the same thing as saying morality is relative.

Left and right, all Americans know that freedom is better than slavery, that love is better than hate, kindness better than cruelty, tolerance better than bigotry. We don't always know how we know these things, and yet mysteriously we know them nonetheless.

Then why does the right consistently endorse actions and behaviors that prohibit freedom (drug laws), diminish love and promote hate (banning homosexual marriage), destroy kindness and approve of cruelty (allow for unlimited imprisonment, suspend habeas corpus, and practice torture), and promote bigotry over tolerance (against homosexuals, immigrants, non-Christians, women, blacks, and leftists)?

The true complexity arises when we must defend these values in a world that does not universally embrace them

So much for morality being simple.

when we reach the place where we must be intolerant in order to defend tolerance, or unkind in order to defend kindness, or hateful in order to defend what we love.

So it's okay for you to do it because it's easier to throw away your morals and tolerance rather than actually practice what you preach... come to think of it, it's beyond what you preach, it's easier to throw out your morality and tolerance than to actually practice what you unquestioningly demand of others.

When heroes arise who take those difficult duties on themselves, it is tempting for the rest of us to turn our backs on them, to vilify them in order to protect our own appearance of righteousness.

Except in the Spider-Man movies, the people of New York resisted the Green Goblin, Doctor Octavius, and the others and helped Spider-Man. In the new Batman movies, people still stood with him, and there's another movie that will resolve those issues. Those people on the boats DIDN'T kill each other to save themselves. Not even the convicted criminals.

As Gary Oldman's Commissioner Gordon says of the hated and hunted Batman, "He has to run away -- because we have to chase him."

Yes, but Gordon knows the truth and his heart isn't in the chase, only in the preservation of Gotham. And you know what? Because Batman knows he has to be chased, he doesn't whine about it. If you think your ideology has to be trashed and abused for the good of the nation, because those who don't share your ideology are too immature to handle the truth, then quit f*cking whining about it and accept being chased.

That's real moral complexity. And when our artistic community is ready to show that sometimes men must kill in order to preserve life; that sometimes they must violate their values in order to maintain those values;

Batman didn't break his only rule, no matter how the Joker nettled him. In fact, the movie sent a message AGAINST violating values in order to maintain them in the Two-Face character.

and that while movie stars may strut in the bright light of our adulation for pretending to be heroes, true heroes often must slink in the shadows, slump-shouldered and despised

If you think the American people despise our soldiers - our brothers and sisters, our sons and daughters, our friends - then you are the most ideologically blind motherf*cker on the planet.

then and only then will we be able to pay President Bush his due and make good and true films about the war on terror.

I think the only way for there to be a true film about the war on terror is, I don't know, if those in charge of the war on terror are ever going to be honest with us about the war on terror. Until they start acting moral, ethical, and virtuous, there's no reason to depict them that way in film.

/i read the article as clever satire, but i suspect not everyone will
//might as well address the points as if they were attempting to be real

The Wall Street Journal is quickly becoming the new NRO.

burndtdan: The Icelander: I can just see Bush putting on his underroos and tying a towel around his neck, running around the Oval Office saying "Wee! I'm batman! The Wall Street Journal said so!"



i am the bat.

Venture Bros for the win!

the bush administration has done a wonderful job of stating their case for totalitarian authority, as the only challenge in 8 years has come from a small number of unfavorable court decisions that are remarkable not for the theory of law that they state, but the fact that someone in a position of authority in the government declined to thank bush for the privilege of living without the rule of law.


another thought, can someone please find me a republican who can watch a movie without vomitting out 800 words of pseudo-intellectual cage liner about the political implications of a cartoon robot or batman.

I submitted this with a much more cliche headline...

And speaking of cliche, I made this earlier when I first read the article. Very quick and dirty:



MS Paint FTW!

Thrakkerzog: burndtdan: The Icelander: I can just see Bush putting on his underroos and tying a towel around his neck, running around the Oval Office saying "Wee! I'm batman! The Wall Street Journal said so!"



i am the bat.

Venture Bros for the win!


Can't wait to see what Hank does with his new found "immortality"
Oh and the writer of the article is an a$$hat and the WJ is junk.

TFA: ...that sometimes they must violate their values in order to maintain those values...

When you can violate your values in the hopes of someday restoring those values, you can't call them values anymore. You call them "conveniences".

sigdiamond2000: Like W, Batman is vilified and despised for confronting terrorists in the only terms they understand. Like W, Batman sometimes has to push the boundaries of civil rights to deal with an emergency, certain that he will re-establish those boundaries when the emergency is past.

And like Batman, W should put on a cape and jump off a building somewhere.

Except Batman never violated his values. He didn't kill Joker. That would have been violating his values.

alexdroog: I submitted this with a much more cliche headline...

And speaking of cliche, I made this earlier when I first read the article. Very quick and dirty:



MS Paint FTW!

When I first read that, I thought it said "What are you Denise? Are you retarded or something?"

Which I thought was funnier than the old cliche.

patrick767: That also makes me wonder... how long has the WSJ's opinion page been so farking devoid of anything resembling intelligence? It is possible to write an intelligent, thoughtful opinion piece from a conservative point of view. One would think if any newspaper would contain such work, one with the long history of the WSJ would be that paper. Instead we get this shiat.

I'll give you a hint- Its 2 words, it rhymes with Dupert Burdoch and the first 2 guesses don't count....

WTF is with American Republicans using scenarios from fantasy and fiction in an attempt to justify their screwheaded policies? Didn't they ask a question based on a doomsday plot from a '24' episode during the first debates?

There are only two reasonable explanations for this article.

1) This article is from The Onion, and it got mistakenly emailed to some dimwit at the WSJ, who thought it was brilliant and published as their own.

2) Some dimwit at the WSJ did actually write it and believes that their circulation includes only the 23% of the population who are delusional enough to still support BatBush.

Comic books have a well known conservative bias.

Wow, that was a dumb article. And i highly doubt Batman would keep people arrested indefinitely without legal rights so they could be tortured.

Hell, Batman shutdown his cellphone sonar system after one use. If you want to compare W to somebody, he's more similar to the League of Shadows.

There seems to me no question that the Batman film "The Dark Knight," currently breaking every box office record in history, is at some level a paean of praise to the fortitude and moral courage that has been shown by George W. Bush in this time of terror and war.

Okay, I'll humor that, go on...

Like W, Batman is vilified and despised for confronting terrorists in the only terms they understand.

Again debatable, but for the sake of argument, okay...

Like W, Batman sometimes has to push the boundaries of civil rights to deal with an emergency,

Okay, I'm with ya so far...

certain that he will re-establish those boundaries when the emergency is past.

And HERE'S where ya lose me!

Jacobin: There are only two reasonable explanations for this article.

1) This article is from The Onion, and it got mistakenly emailed to some dimwit at the WSJ, who thought it was brilliant and published as their own.

2) Some dimwit at the WSJ did actually write it and believes that their circulation includes only the 23% of the population who are delusional enough to still support BatBush.

Scenario (3): The author is a dimwit author who submitted a guest column, which the WSJ published because not even a conservative columnist would pen their name to such tripe, but the WSJ would...

whereisian: WTF is with American Republicans using scenarios from fantasy and fiction in an attempt to justify their screwheaded policies? Didn't they ask a question based on a doomsday plot from a '24' episode during the first debates?

It makes sense if you consider they've been living in a fantasy world for the past several decades.

Frank N Stein: Comic books have a well known conservative bias.

Then why was Rorschach portrayed as such a douche?

Also nice to see that the guy completely missed the whole Harvey Dent story, which showed that if you go too far in your quest for justice and rightness you end up becoming what you were fighting.

DarnoKonrad: The Wall Street Journal is quickly becoming the new NRO.

The conservative rags are all going deep into the red ink. The WSJ is the only one left that is still in the black, and that only because it's the paper of choice if you're looking to follow Wall Street... i.e. having nothing to do with it's opinions page.

The element of fiction that the movie introduces is Lucius Fox, the voice of reason. Bush doesn't have that.