Federalist Paupers

A Prediction

Andrew Klavan, in a plot worthy of the Joker, attempted late last month to make hundreds of thousands of readers die laughing by saying that The Dark Knight is “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.” He’s not the only one who equates the two.

How much do you want to bet next year we get a prominant opinion piece hailing Bush as a real-life Adrian Veidt?

Edit: Spoiler warning — if you haven’t read The Watchmen, do so before clicking on comments.

Actually, if you haven’t read The Watchmen, just go read it, period.

Posted by Geoff in Uncategorized

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This entry was posted on Friday, August 15th, 2008 at 8:15 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the comments RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

7 Responses to “A Prediction”

Jamie says:

As long as he doesn’t destroy NYC with a giant genetically engineered alien monster I think we’re safe.

August 15th, 2008 at 9:28 pm

Tom says:

I’m going to do something silly and respond to foolishness with seriousness.

The primary fallacy of the reviews Geoffrey linked to is their equation one-to-one equation of Batman and his tactics to President Bush and his efforts to fight terrorism domestically.

President Bush is an elected public official responsible for ensuring the safety of his constituents and the protection of their rights. Now, does that make him more like the Gotham’s A) millionaire playboy turned chiropterian-themed vigilante, or B) its district attorney?

And what did the movie have to say when Harvey Dent adopted Batman’s modes of crime-fighting? It condemned them and not only because Dent/Two Face went too far*: but because it acknowledged that some things that are appropriate for vigilante Batman are not appropriate for DA Harvey Dent.

One other thing of note is that Batman “push[es] the boundaries of civil rights” under much more limited circumstances than President Bush does. When Batman tortures the Joker, he’s doing it in response to a literal ticking time bomb; when uses his sonar-thingy to tap into all of Gothom’s cell phones, he gives control of it to a man who he knows will destroy the device as soon as the crisis is passed.** The Bush administration has seen little need for this kind of sunseting, and when it does provide provisions to allow new government powers to lapse, it insinuates that anyone who would allow such a thing to happen is a squishy-dove liberal.

Geoffrey sometimes speaks of some conservatives’ masturbatory fantasies of a real show down with Islam; this Batman-equals-Bush thing is its kissin’ cousin.

* And what is it with Batman’s pansy I-don’t-kill-bad-guys thing? Is he a a liberal?

** Even Andrew Sullivan has – at times – conceded that this would be appropriate and has granted the Bush administration some slack in the days and weeks immediately following 9/11.

August 20th, 2008 at 1:28 pm

Tom says:

How much do you want to bet next year we get a prominant opinion piece hailing Bush as a real-life Adrian Veidt?

Actually, not much; Veidt is a self-described liberal with a one-world ideology.

August 20th, 2008 at 1:30 pm

Geoff says:

Exactly right, which is what makes the Bush=Batman thing not just silly, but dumb.

August 21st, 2008 at 4:37 pm

Hubbard says:

Hm, I would have thought that the self-righteous, former stalwart on evil who’s gone over to the dark side—the Harvey Dent/Two-face role—could well be played in real life by Andrew Sullivan.

(Note: tongue firmly placed in cheek.)

August 23rd, 2008 at 1:06 pm

Hubbard says:

Geoff—

Allegories don’t necessarily have to have a one-to-one representation. The Lord of the Rings, for example, clearly references Christianity, but three figures can plausibly be called Christlike: Frodo, who suffered for the sins of the world; Gandalf, who was resurrected; Aragorn, who took his rightful place as ruler of Minas Tirith, which Tolkien thought of as Rome.

August 23rd, 2008 at 1:09 pm

Tom says:

Allegories don’t necessarily have to have a one-to-one representation. The Lord of the Rings, for example, clearly references Christianity, but three figures can plausibly be called Christlike: Frodo, who suffered for the sins of the world; Gandalf, who was resurrected; Aragorn, who took his rightful place as ruler of Minas Tirith, which Tolkien thought of as Rome.

Agreed, but that only further undermines the Bush=Batman thing in my mind. It’s foolish to argue that there’s nothing to that comparison, but it’s even more foolish to overlook the other, equally germane and sometimes contradictory examples.

Batman does share meaningful attributes with President Bush, but not to the exclusion of Harvey Dent. Likewise, as you say, Frodo, Gandalf and Aragorn all reminiscent of Christ, though no single one of them is a stand-in for Christ. This is not the same for Narnia’s Aslan, who is Christ.

August 24th, 2008 at 10:49 am

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