For Your Eyes Only: W

Yesterday, Steven Zeitchik of the Hollywood Reporter posted the first four pages of Oliver Stone's upcoming Bush biopic, W.

Though there's not a whole lot there, and it's taken from a draft that dates back to october 2007 (and as such, Zeitchik warns, has potentially gone through several iterations since), it can't help but be compelling - from the opening scene, in which then-Rangers shareholder Bush channels the weird bravado of Jake LaMotta looking into the mirror to a young, frat-pledging Bush mixing screwdrivers in a garbage can.

Of course, one of the highlights is a (probably) fictional roundtable meeting in the Oval Office, where the gang settles on 'Axis of Evil' and tries to figure out where Iran fits into everything.

An excerpt:

Rove opens a bottle of non-alcoholic beer for the President. Cheney finally chimes in.

CHENEY
Anyone can go to Baghdad.
Real men go to Tehran.

Bush smirks, clinks beer bottle with Cheney's coffee mug.

BUSH
Real men.

CUT TO:

A GIANT BOTTLE OF VODKA. INT. DKE FRAT HOUSE - BASEMENT - NIGHT - 1966

Once I got past how much this early draft really resembles some sort of parody, it finally occurred to me that Stone might be onto something pretty great after all: that Bush, when you strip him of all authority and real-life context, makes for a pretty compelling figure.

Strongman Theory

I reckon I'd better write this before I wander over to the Huffington Post, read the analysis and get my story all crooked. Although it appears that I accidentally just did.

Onward!

It's occurred to me that, of all the CSPAN Senate hearings that I could be watching right now, this one probably tops the bill. Gen. David Petraeus, head honcho among all military commanders in Iraq and one really overqualified dude,  and Ryan Crocker, U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, briefed the Senate's Foreign Relations Committee today about the State of The War.

According to polls, Americans already have some pretty strong - albeit conflicted - views on that one. 

• Rasmussen Reports, um, reports that 65 percent of us are in favor of a battle plan that will have all American troops home within a year. 
• Meanwhile, Gallup is reporting that the same percentage of us are also pretty worried about what the implications of leaving Iraq might be.
• Gallup also is saying that a pretty meaningful majority of people polled believe that history will judge the Iraq War a failure.

So we've got a sizable group of people who favor a timetable for troop withdrawal and are conscientious about the gaping footprint their government has left in the future of the Middle East.  Why can't the big guys see that sort of logic?

So there Petraeus went, telling Congress to put a moratorium on troop withdrawals until at least September, the point at which the Iraq situation ceases to be "fragile and reversible" and becomes something a little nicer.

Ah hell, I'll just embed it.  Drink every time Gen. Petraeus or Crocker describes the situation as 'complicated.'