WSJ: Batman-when you trace the outline with your finger, it looks kind of like . . . a "W."

[kpete]

kpete: I saw this movie last night, loved it. I saw a movie with some great acting and interesting story twists ---BUT--- I never quite saw this......

What Bush and Batman Have in Common
By ANDREW KLAVAN
July 25, 2008; Page A15

A cry for help goes out from a city beleaguered by violence and fear: A beam of light flashed into the night sky, the dark symbol of a bat projected onto the surface of the racing clouds . . .

Oh, wait a minute. That's not a bat, actually. In fact, when you trace the outline with your finger, it looks kind of like . . . a "W."

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.

And like W, Batman understands that there is no moral equivalence between a free society -- in which people sometimes make the wrong choices -- and a criminal sect bent on destruction. The former must be cherished even in its moments of folly; the latter must be hounded to the gates of Hell.

"The Dark Knight," then, is a conservative movie about the war on terror.

more lunacy from the WSJ at:
http://online.wsj.com/article_print/SB121694247343482821.html

[LaurenG]

1. that is truly pathetic - truly

:rofl:

[kpete]

7. still laughing

pictures of W on his tricycle with his batman cape in the oval office

[burythehatchet]

2. ...an Hagee is Moses, and I'm the Pope

[NanceGreggs]

3. "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."

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[Blue_Tires]

20. lol at that!

[kenny blankenship]

4. Dang that's clever! And you know what else? It also looks like the top of my cat's head!

Which reveals the hidden truth that George W. Bush is my kitty.
We have some litterbox issues.

[awoke_in_2003]

18. It actually looks like the top of the one true god

Ceiling Cat.

[meegbear]

5. Holy projecting Batman!

Pa-FUCKIN'-thetic!

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

6. There was that "moral dilemma" Jack Bauer shit.

In one scene Batman breaks a man's legs in order to get him to talk.

In another, Batman hacks into everybody's cell phone to find the bad guys.

You can't tell me those weren't contrived references to current events.

[jobycom]

17. The man who contrived this "Jack Bauer" scenes

Jonathan Nolan, the writer (Chris Nolan's brother) is an Obama supporter.

The scenes you mention were certainly contrived to fit current events, but they were lectures on why Bush is wrong. Batman's cell phone device was so offensive that the only other person who knew of it--a character who has been a moral center throughout the series--threatened to resign unless the system was destroyed. And Batman destroyed it immediately after the threat had been handled. It was a condemnation of Bush, not an argument in his favor.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

19. Uh huh.

Sure.

[jobycom]

22. Eh, hush, we all know you didn't see it, anyway.

:rofl:

[liberalpress]

8. and the bat-signal..

... when shines, is like a bright hopeful "O" surrounding the "W" protecting it and keeping it safe. So,you see children, the film is really about how liberals have to comfort consevatives after their own war-mongering retoric has frightened them into calling out for help.

[rox63]

9. What a load of crap!

:crazy:

[n2doc]

10. He's Buttman, not Batman!

And his sidekick is Throbbin "Dick" Cheney....

[ebdarcy]

11. Yeah, not really.

For one thing, Batman is trying to save his city. Bush, as we have seen, would let the city tear itself apart. Secondly, bush would have given orders just to blow up the ferries. Can't trust the people to make their own decisions and do what is right. Plus, instead of rescuing the hostages, he would have just let the swat team take out the kidnappers and the hostages. Collateral damage, how sad. In addition, bush would have secretly been working with the mob, and probably with the Joker too.

Batman also thinks that there are people who are capable of good. That undercurrent is always there in the films. I'm sure bush thinks that everyone in the world is just as power-hungry and bloodthirsty as he is, because it's the only thing he knows.

How disconnected does one have to be in order to compare bush to Batman? Unless this article is a joke that I just don't get.

[Blue_Tires]

12. if that is supposed to be satire, then it is over the top

[jobycom]

13. A 'W'... Which stands for "Damn, I'm a stupidass commentator"

I don't recall the Batman slaughtering a million innocent civilians to get at one bad guy. I don't remember Batman randomly torturing everyone he got his hands on in the hopes that one of them might have info he needed. I do recall Batman telling Harvey Dent not to torture. I do remember the Batman twice trying to beat an answer out of a suspect, and getting negative results both times. I do remember the Batman building an eavesdropping device that could spy on everyone all at once, and the device being so offensive that one major character resigned because of its existence, and Batman himself destroyed it immediately after the danger that inspired it was defeated.

I walked away from the movie thinking it was a complete condemnation of Bush and the last eight years, and that each of the points above were either attempts to show that Bush's strategies were ineffective, as in the torture, or downright wrong, by showing what Bush should have done instead. He should have only carried the fight to the terrorists, and not slaughtered innocent people in the process. He should have only used his most extreme measures under immediate threat, not as a prolonged fishing expedition to hopefully catch a bad guy or two who might be out there--or worse, spy for his own purposes.

That movie was a complete and utter condemnation of everything Bush has done in the last eight years. I would say Bush was the Joker, but it goes deeper than that. Bush was the entire premise the movie preached against. He was the evil ethos the entire movie was created to condemn.

And if by some chance Nolan's objective was to portray Bush as Batman, then he failed. Epic failed.

[zbdent]

14. Batman is anti-gun ... could never be a Republican

Republicans are pro-gun ... to the point of utter lunacy ...

[Glorfindel]

15. Surely it isn't possible that he (that anyone!) can be that stupid

or maybe he's just plain evil.

[Occam Bandage]

16. Except, you know, Batman never kills for the sake of safety, and turns over all criminals,

no matter how dangerous or deadly, to the police where they may face charges and be tried in open court. Sure, Batman does some nasty shit. But the two most recent movies are quite clear that he is not a straight-up good guy; he is a vigilante with a deep and powerful dark streak. He uses fear as a weapon, and often causes considerable collateral psychological damage in the process; one can hardly claim that Gotham is healthier at the end of Dark Knight than it is at the beginning, nor can you absolve Batman for all culpability in that; he almost single-handedly created the environment of public and criminal fear/faith in symbolism that the Joker uses to tear the city apart.

[Pale Blue Dot]

21. Spoiler alert: The key to the film is the last line.

Something along the lines of "Batman is the hero we deserve, not the hero we need."

I read the movie as a condemnation of the type of society that CREATES a Bush.

Oh, and the analysis in the OP is a total load of crap. But we knew that.