Political valentines for Pres. Obama....
I saw the Affleck film. It is two hours of well-done entertainment, with much of the suspense coming from the story being based on an actual episode. The picture is mostly accurate, according to an article in Slate--see the video clip of the star CIA agent at the end. But the Canadians deserved far more credit than they got; this Wired article adds telling detail to the true story. A WSJ op-ed explains how the movie graphically shows the cruelty & fanaticism of the Iranian Islamists.
But Affleck & co-producer George Clooney could not resist a wet-kiss postscript valentine to one of America's worst presidents, Jimmy Carter. Just before the credits the producers tell us that Carter brought the hostages home safely and thus preserved America's dignity. They add that the story is an exemplar of cooperation between governments.
Tellingly, their postscript omits the disastrous failed hostage rescue mission of April 1980, during the crisis. That a raid was being planned is mentioned in the film, but not its result, which came after completion of the CIA "exfiltration" depicted in the film. The uninitiated viewer is left believing that the US emerged with enhanced stature around the globe.
Nothing could be further from historical truth. The humiliation America suffered from a 444-day hostage crisis, plus a failed rescue mission, were key factors in Ronald Reagan's defeat of Carter in the 1980 election. In the book, Argo (2012), authored by Antonio Mendez, the CIA agent who exfiltrated the diplomats but does not share the filmmakers' politics, he called the failed raid a disaster that cost Carter the 1980 election.
Now one can argue that those who remember those years will not take their views from Hollywood propaganda, and that those who are too young to recall will remember a very entertaining flick, and not the whitewash at the end. But it is another marker in liberal Hollywood's canon of historical revisionism, ably detailed by TAS reviewer James Bowman.
A third planned fall surprise, Zero Dark Thirty, a film made by Hollywood players given deep inside access to key players involved in the bin Laden raid, was pushed back to a December release, after strong protest from Republicans.
Bottom Line. Voters have factored in the killing of OBL. Events during the campaign will overshadow Hollywood's propaganda. But once again, Tinseltown's tilt is on public display for voters to judge.
Letter from the Capitol, LFTC, Conservative Politics
Comments