This year's incoming college freshman class was born in 1990. They missed the 1980s, Reagan, the Cold War, Miami Vice and parachute pants entirely! The Beloit College mindset list "is... not deliberately designed to make readers feel really old," but how could it not? Among the bits that are likely to throw you into a week-long funk:

• "For these students, Sammy Davis Jr., Jim Henson, Ryan White, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Freddy Krueger have always been dead."

• "Martha Stewart Living has always been setting the style."
• "WWW has never stood for World Wide Wrestling."
• "Clarence Thomas has always sat on the Supreme Court."
• "The Tonight Show has always been hosted by Jay Leno and started at 11:35 EST."
• "Soft drink refills have always been free."
• "Off-shore oil drilling in the United States has always been prohibited."

The National Archives has released the names of nearly 24,000 brave men and women who worked for the Office of Strategic Services -- the precursor of the CIA -- during World War II. Among the names on the list, according to the AP: Julia Child, Sterling Hayden, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., and Stewart Copeland's dad.

Julia Child's work as a spy is actually old news. What's notable here is the number of names: Many historians had pegged the number of OSS operatives at around 13,000 or so. Turns out there were quite a few more than that.

The great Bernie Mac passed away Saturday morning at the age of 50. I'm sure that if Big Mac knew he was going to die at that age of something as old-school as pneumonia, he'd have written a hilarious 30-minute riff about it. (Pneumonia ... PNEUMONIA! .... That's an old man's death. It's like dying of the gout! Or the Black Plague! No, no, no, no. Not me, boy. Not in America. Ummm, nuuum. When I go, I wanna go out like a man. In bed, with my lady. Apologies, Bernie. I couldn't resist imagining your take.)

Like Cosby, much of Bernie Mac's material revolved around family. Though, unlike Cosby (and more like Redd Foxx), Bernie Mac's material was dirty. He played blue, as Foxx would say. Real blue. Go to YouTube yourself and plug in "Bernie Mac" and there is a trove of great stuff from the Kings of Comedy tours. And boy was Bernie great in one of my favorite holiday classics: Bad Santa.

Michelle Malkin, of all people, observes that Bernie was a real class act:

He was low key and funny, and he also signed a Hollywood anti-terror petition, owned guns, and thought movies should leave all that skin to the imagination.

He tangled with the Obamessiah last month, too, and got thrown under the bus.

And though a life-long Democrat, Bernie said "I'm a Republican at tax time." Good line.

Rest in peace, Bernie. You, Redd and Richard will be putting on a great show up there.

Since I'd like to keep this tribute mostly clean, here's a couple of great clips from "The Bernie Mac Show," where he cleaned up his act for television — and didn't sacrifice a single laugh. He was a real class act.

And here's a clip from "Head of State." Come to think of it, John McCain could do worse than pick Mitch Gilliam, bailbondsman, as his veep.

I only learned today that I'd missed a once-in-a-lifetime brush with greatness. A man I'd have loved to meet was visiting Pasadena yesterday — and his appearance was but a mile or so from my house. Alas, my special day was not to be. I'll have to go to my grave knowing I won't be able to tell a great story (with a photo as evidence) that I'd pass down to my grandchildren.

Oh, well. I tip my hat to you, Big Guy.

Seriously. He was promoting his tell-all book about his life in Hollywood. When a 91-year-old man has something to say about that endlessly fascinating subject, it's probably worth a read — especially from such a notorious character as Ernest Borgnine. I think I need to get over to Vroman's and grab a copy. Just the ridiculous stores from "Airwolf" are surely golden.

Little did I know that a headline, and story, describing the stabbing and decapitation of a Greyhound Bus rider by a fellow rider could get worse. It did.

For one, the attacker turned out to be a cannibal. Sorry for not pointing that out earlier. I read a rather early story.

But now we learn that PETA has exploited this barbaric act to grotesquely advance its own agenda.

An animal rights group has posted an ad on its website comparing the recent stabbing and decapitation of a young Winnipeg man to how humans kill animals for food.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals said the advertisement is meant to make people understand how animals suffer when they are killed in slaughterhouses. The group posted the imageless advertisement on its blog site Wednesday.

"PETA's ad…is meant to spur people to think about the terror and pain experienced by animals who are raised and killed for food. The group aims to demonstrate that animals — just like humans — are made of flesh, blood, and bone and deserve protection from needless killing," said a statement on PETA's website, also posted Wednesday.

I guess it's OK because the ad was "imageless." Be thankful for small favors. How anyone could support this morally obscene group continues to be a mystery to me. This list of PETA's celebrity supporters should be asked about it. Alyssa Milano, Alec Baldwin, Alicia Silverstone, Carrie Underwood, Forrest Whitaker, et al ... call your office.

(HT: Moonbattery)

From bromances and man caves to make-up tips for guys. We're doomed. Here's Lileks on Wednesday: "It’s hilarious, really – the culture touts makeup for men and the concept of “boy beauty” as applied to Pete Frickin’ Wentz, and then wonders where the "real men” have gone. It’s like putting an atonal opera on the stereo, turning it up to 10 and wondering where all the music lovers went. It’s not that they vanished; it’s just that they don’t want to hang around with you anymore."

The author of the Gulag Archipelago, Cancer Ward, and other seminal works of 20th century literature is dead. He was 89.

Obits here, here, here and here.

Like so many great men, Solzhenitsyn was complicated. American conservatives revered him for his courage and his unflinching portrayals of the horrors of Soviet communism. His commencement address at Harvard in 1978 inspired a generation of intellectuals, including one of my mentors, Charles Kesler. But even though Solzhenitsyn lived as an exile in Vermont for 18 years, he never really identified with America and was sharply critical of the West, which he considered "spiritually vacant, weak and decadent."

Man's spirit, his soul -- not his politics -- was the predominant concern of Solzhenitsyn's work. As he told the Harvard graduating class, "should someone ask me whether I would indicate the West such as it is today as a model to my country, frankly I would have to answer negatively. ...Through intense suffering our country has now achieved a spiritual development of such intensity that the Western system in its present state of spiritual exhaustion does not look attractive."

Truth is, Solzhenitsyn was a Russian, first and last. Once a dissident, in his final years the Nobel Prize winner was regarded by his countrymen as a national treasure -- and as something of a soothsayer. "Solzhenitsyn anticipated that Communism would disintegrate, that the criminal element nurtured in the Gulag would take control of Russia's economy, that members of the KGB and the criminal elements were actually the same people, and that it would take 100 years for Russia to recover from Communism," wrote James Pontuso in the Claremont Review of Books. "Soviet experts in the West scoffed at these prognostications. Who's laughing now?"

Every worthwhile civilization needs its critics -- and its prophets. Solzhenitsyn was surely one of them.

Update, Dr. Zaius: K-Lo at The Corner was kind enough to share Jay Nordlinger's take on the 25th anniversary of Solzhenitsyn's Harvard address. As always with Nordlinger, it's worth reading.

A taste:

“Truth seldom is pleasant; it is almost invariably bitter,” [Solzhenitsyn said.] He went on to play his role of truthteller, no matter whom it discomfits. As Charles Kesler remarked in an essay later, “Solzhenitsyn was arresting because he spoke of the truth as if it were true.” Lovely line, and insight, that. Kesler also quoted another great foreign friend of America, Tocqueville, who said, “Enemies never tell men the truth.”

Like I said (and I'm sure Ben would agree), it's worth reading as a tribute to a great man. John Podhoretz has other great things to say about this great man, including a discussion of one of Solzhenitsyn's lesser-known books, The Oak and the Calf. An excerpt from Podhoretz:

It was Solzhenitsyn who was the impossible pain in the ass, because he could not bring himself to make those accommodations; he knew his path was one only a very few could possibly follow, because it required that one’s soul be made of oak, and humans with that kind of solidity come along a few times a century.

Really. Read the whole thing.

With all due respect to Andrew Klavan, Dirty Harry, Kyle Smith, and our new friend Christian Toto, Father Raymond J. de Souza's piece today in the National Post is the best take on "The Dark Knight" I've read precisely because he does not attempt to tie the film to current events or politicians.* The film will be watched and contemplated for decades to come not because it has something profound to say about America and the war on terror but because it has something profound to say about honor, good and evil, and heroism.

* Whatever disagreement I may have with my conservative comrades-in-arms is nothing compared with my general revulsion at the ham-fisted, stupid and repugnant commentary coming from the left. Holy BDS, Batman!

I was poking around for some sober analysis of of Obama's Berlin speech, and somehow I stumbled upon (without actually Stumbling) a fascinating blog post at the Houston Chronicle on four mistakes that killed the record industry before filesharing. Jeff Balke argues that the record industry -- including radio -- put itself on course for catastrophe a decade or more before Napster and peer-to-peer made music synonymous with "free."

The gist of Balke's case is that the bean counters are to blame, as they often are. Mindblowing revenues of the '80s and early '90s were fueled in large part by music fans replacing their vinyl and filling out their collections with CDs. That was entirely predictable -- how many greatest hits collections and rare B-sides can you "remaster" and repackage?

Worse was the record labels' decision to slash costs by doing away with artist development and promotion. "Longevity trumps the flavor of the week," Balke writes, although the inverse makes more sense as far as explaining what the record companies did. His point, however, is "artists like Springsteen, Tom Petty and others were what sustained (the record companies) over the long haul, not The Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears. Those were bands and musicians developed over years and they didn't come cheap, but they made up for it in the long run."

Even worse yet, the bigs let their relationships with the record stores wane while making deals with Wal-Mart, Target and Best Buy. (It might be hard to remember now, but Best Buy started as a great store with a huge and often eclectic selection of music. I bought a lot of classical and other stuff there until 1994 or so, when the chain began to morph into the K-Mart of electronics chains. No, that's not quite fair -- Circuit City probably deserves the title, from a business standpoint. But Best Buy always looks like a bomb has hit the place and I detest shopping there.)

The upshot of the record industry's lucrative but short-sighted distribution deals is that today, Wal-Mart and Target stock around 300 new titles a year and rule the retail brick-n-mortar music business. Meanwhile, Tower is a distant memory, smaller independent stores like Morning Glory in Santa Barbara are calling it quits, and talented acts languish in obscurity. (The story is similar with independent bookstores and publishers.)

Finally, Balke laments the death of the DJ and free-form FM radio. (There is, to my knowledge, only one specimen remaining.) "Just like destroying distribution removed variety from the shelves of retailers, centralizing programming ended variety as we once knew it on terrestrial radio," Balke writes. "It was all about the relationship between DJ and listener, between people. Once that relationship was destroyed and stations began playing the same narrow play list, people began to abandon radio in droves."

Satellite offered a glimmer of hope, but it didn't last long. XM began homogenizing its content several years ago. Although the service still has a few pockets of interesting content, it's nothing like it was in 2004 when I started subscribing. (I ended my subscription last year.) The merger of Sirius and XM is merely the period at the end of a glum sentence.

The only problem with Balke's analysis is the way it downplays the possibilities for new models of independent distribution. Services such as eMusic and CDBaby are magnificent outlets for independent artists or boutique labels. It's true that nobody has quite figured out the new business model. Radiohead seems to have had some success, but Trent Reznor and others have not. But somebody -- probably Steve Jobs -- will get it, sooner or later. The sound of opportunity is an irresistible melody.

In theory, much hilarity should ensue in this video, in which the godlike Canadian prog-rock power trio play backstage at the Colbert Report. But Neal Peart doesn't look like he's having much fun at all.

I did not get a chance this weekend to see "The Dark Knight," but will soon enough. But the other night, some network was showing Tim Burton's "Batman," from 1989 — obviously trying to drive ratings thanks to the buzz of the new film. I don't even recall the last time Burton's first stab at the Caped Crusader was even on television.

Burton is, without a doubt, among Hollywood's most talented and inventive filmmakers. He is rightly credited for rejuvenating the comic book hero genre with that first take at Batman. But I was struck by how badly the film has aged.

It's not just the fact that Burton did not have at his disposal the kind of CGI effects that define today's pulp thrillers (Jurassic Park in 1993 broke barriers there, and that film's special effects are still largely a wonder.) Burton probably would have eschewed heavy use of CGI anyway, employing other methods to create an imaginary world. The first Batman just looks, feels and sounds so damn dated.

Bruce Wayne's posh digs look today like cheesy toss-away items from the set of "Dynasty." Michael Keaton broods in scene after scene, which is what all Batmans must do. But he seems empty. His contemplative gazes into the distance nothing but a blank, 1,000-yard stare. Kim Basinger is a complete nothing in the film. And I had to see it again to remember that the irritating Robert Wuhl (his only good picture is "Bull Durham") was even in the movie. And the music, especially "Bat Dance" by Prince, is just awful. I even found myself unmoved by Danny Elfman's score.

Now, on to Jack Nicholson. He's remembered in movie lore for absolutely nailing the Joker. But watching his performance the other night, I was pretty underwhelmed. Irritated, really. He was camping it up as badly as Jim Carrey in any of his films, only wasn't as interesting to watch. He was neither menacing enough, nor funny enough. And the whole time watching, you get the feeling Jack didn't care much about the character — but only cared about having some indulgent fun. His henchmen tooled around in purple sedans with green tops. That Burton touch just seemed like a bad choice.

Other quibbles: Burton's Batmobile looks pretty lame, and is about as fast as a golf cart. Keaton's bat suit is miles better than the old Adam West get-up, but still strikes the eye as pretty unimaginative and amateurish. When he runs, the cape flaps behind him like a tissue in the wind, making him look more silly than heroic.

Am I being unfair? Will the passage of time make Christopher Nolan's take on Batman look just as dated?

Always wondered what the heck Joe Cocker was singing at Woodstock? Wonder no more.

Michael Ramirez, the 2008 Pulitzer Prize winning editorial cartoonist, finely captures the media's reaction — both home and abroad — to his educational tour campaign swing through Europe.

It should be noted that America's network superstars, who will be accompanying Obama on his pre-victory lap of Europe, did not give McCain the same kind of coverage for his trip to Iraq in March. I guess the cafes and discotheques of Baghdad aren't quite up to snuff yet. It's not so fun to pad the expense account on camel rides and 20 "My TV 'talent' went to Iraq and I got was this lousy T-shirt" gifts.

Further insult: American taxpayers are picking up the tab. Yeah, McCain's trip to Iraq a while back was also funded by taxpayers. But, McCain's was an official trip under the auspices of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and not a vanity trip.

Dear Miss Lopez:

Black Canary Barbie: Smut or filth?Parents aren't going to buy Black Canary Barbie for their 5-year-old daughters. Well, maybe a couple of freaks in San Francisco or Portland might. But not normal people. (Yes, I know, you aren't the only one to deplore the doll. A British group called Christian Voice described the doll as "filth.")

No, no, no. Do you know who are going to buy Black Canary Barbie? 40+-year-old comic book geeks, that's who. And Barbie fanatics. But they're doomed anyway.

It's going to require a lot of gin to wash that thought out of your brain. Sleep well.

Andy Dick goes to Murrieta for a funeral, and, well, as Fark often says, with mugshot goodness.

My wife bought the over-hyped (but good) Eat This, Not That," which tells you somewhat obvious things like that I should order a nasty barbecued chicken sandwich at Carl's Jr instead of my beloved Santa Fe chicken sandwich (about the only fast food I'll eat).

So in that spirit, I'd like to start "Watch This, Not That." Yeah, i should probably do it over at Teevee, but I can barely remember how to post on my own blog, much less that one. Plus, my excuse is that it's movies too.

So, here we go:

Watch this:
Giant

Not this:
There Will Be Blood

(This is a good time to note that There Will Be Blood is a fairly good movie, with a stunning central performance, so it is worth seeing. Just see Giant first.)

Watch this:
Verminators

Not that:
How Clean Is Your House?

Watch this:
Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares

Not that:
Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares

Yes, I know it's fashionable to prefer to British version to the U.S. version, and somethimes the U.S. version is at least the equal (such as The Office) and sometime not (Coupling, but in this case, the British version is about Gordon Ramsey trying to help restaurants be better. The U.S. version is about Gordon yelling and trying to make the restaurant owners look stupid. Rumor has it that the new U.S. season this fall will be nicer, but we'll see.

Any other suggestions?

Amid this lament for the steady "de-criticization" (ugh) of American newspapers comes a sharp observation about journalism in America today: "There are some forms of journalism that only professional journalists, backed by the resources of major news organizations can tackle. Abandoning those stories squanders the protections afforded by the First Amendment: Why would the government bother abridging the freedom of the press, when the press is doing such an efficient job of abridging itself?"

Not bad. But the writer, Justin Davidson, offers a radical proposal for reviving arts criticism in America beyond the strictures of newsprint. In the process, Davidson suggests a revival of the arts themselves.

(Hat tip: Alex Ross, who has some critical insights of his own.)

How is it possible that we're debating the Fairness Doctrine in 2008? The answer certainly has nothing to do with ensuring a "diversity" of viewpoints on the public airwaves or "opening the marketplace of ideas." Derek Hunter at Politico has a useful commentary on the hypocrisy of the Fairness Doctrine.

Government shouldn't be in the business of regulating political speech. Period. Apart from the obvious constitutional principle involved ("Congress shall make no law, etc....) the reason for opposing any move to restore the Fairness Doctrine is very simple: What goes around comes around. The Democrats won't always control the machinery of government. Even a few lefties understand this. (But obviously only a few, as the comments to that post make obviously -- and depressingly -- clear.)

The argument that the airwaves are "public" and that a Fairness Doctrine would guarantee a balanced presentation of all points of view is not supported by history. Fact is, the Fairness Doctrine guaranteed nothing but the presentation of the establishment point of view. And previous administrations -- particularly Roosevelt, Kennedy and Johnson -- happily used regulatory power to bludgeon broadcasters that opposed government policies.

Make no mistake: Power and message control are precisely what this debate is about. As Investor's Business Daily noted in an editorial last month, "(Speaker of the House Nancy) Pelosi won't allow former talk radio host and now Congressman Mike Pence's legislation permanently banning the Fairness Doctrine to be voted on this year. Why not? 'The interest of my caucus is the reverse,' she says."

What the "liberal" proponents of the Fairness Doctrine fail to understand is that government regulation is a blunt instrument. Put simply: If Bill O'Reilly goes, so does Keith Olbermann. Rather than "help restore our democracy," the Fairness Doctrine would stifle it.

So-called progressives relish in accusing conservatives of trying to "turn back the clock." Reviving the Fairness Doctrine would turn back the clock on freedom of speech in America in ways that smug liberals either refuse to acknowledge or blithely ignore. Either way, they tinker with the First Amendment at everyone's peril.

Peter Suderman at the American Scene sees the makings of a real clash of the titans between the Space Chimps and Beverly Hills Chihuahua. Suderman expresses some doubts about the chimps. "The subtext here seems to be: Everything is funnier when there are monkeys!" Well, that's true isn't it? Hey Suderman! You want to know the first rule you'd learn if you'd ever spent a day in your life? Monkeys are always funny.

But, for the chihuahuas, the opposite seems to be true: "One needn’t look for subtext here; there’s a lot right on the surface. The message is, in fact, very clear: The more chihuahuas, the better. Chihuahuas are to this film was daily blog posts are to Andrew Sullivan: No matter what they’re doing, there can’t possibly ever be too many of them." Tough sell, that.

I liked both trailers, but then my critical faculties have been obliterated by too much children's TV and booze. If I had to choose, I'd go with Space Chimps. It gives me a chance to do my "Chimps in space" bit, which drives my 6-year-old son crazy. The bit involves me saying "They're chimps... in... space!" several times in a dramatic way. We're to the point that anytime a Space Chimps ad appears on screen, my son shrieks and rushes to put his hand over my mouth.

Priceless, priceless memories.

Update: I'm slowly making my way through the past few days worth of posts at the American Scene. I discovered that Reihan Salam has cast his lot with the chihuahuas. Salam is a thoughtful man. Strange, but thoughtful. This... this raises doubts.

The great conservative movie blog Libertas (now known as the LibertyFilmFestival.com) linked to a LA Times account of the script for Oliver Stone's take on the current president, "W." No one who has seen Stone popularize a wild, conspiratorial narrative for the JFK assassination, or savage Nixon, expects this film to be fair to George W. Bush. And we conservatives should be grateful that he didn't just name the film "Chimpy McBusHitler: The Rise of a Dangerous Moron." Small victory, I guess.

But the script — the script! It sends the unintentional comedy scale off the charts. Behold this excerpt from a scene that Stone imagines happened on the night when George H.W. Bush lost to Bill Clinton:

Int. Houstonian Hotel–Suite–Houston, Texas–November 1992

[George Jr. turns off the TV. Sr. begins weeping. W looks at his father, jarred, never seen him so emotional, so broken.]

Barbara: The best person didn’t win, George. The best man did not win tonight.

Bush Sr.: It hurts. Hurts so bad. My pride … I don’t like to see those who wrote me off be right. But I was wrong and they were right….That hurts more than anything.

Barbara: He is so beneath you. He doesn’t deserve to be President. And wouldn’t be if it wasn’t for the liberal media, the New York Times, blaming you for Reagan’s mess.

[George Jr. puts hand on his father’s shoulder.]

Bush Jr.: Poppy, you were a great President. Great President.

Bush Sr.: Gave it all I could. Thought the war would have carried us. Guess I reached my level, son.

Bush Jr.: Nah. Maybe, if you had just clobbered the [SOB].

Bush Sr.: Huh?

Bush Jr.: Gone all the way. To Baghdad. Cleaned his clock.

Barbara: (sharply to Laura) Did he imbibe in something I don’t know about?

Bush Jr.: Don’t start that. I was talking about decisiveness. Finishing. What I’ve always been told.

Barbara: You’d better stop this. Zip it up, right now, you hear me.

[Jr. backs away, turns.]

Bush Sr.: (sharply to Jr.) I won that war.

Bush Jr.: ‘Course you did, Poppy.

BEDROOM - MOMENTS LATER

Laura: What was that all about?

Bush Jr.: Be damned if I know. Never seen him like this before. It’s strange.

Laura: It’s hard. He knows that this is the end.

Bush Jr.: If Atwater hadn’t died. If he had listened to me and attacked, attacked, attacked! Might have turned out different.

Laura: No. That’s not what this is about. His health, all the medications he’s been taking. He doesn’t have the strength, the fire he had before. He knows.

[Jr. sadly peers at the hunched figure of his father.]

Bush Jr.: Can’t bear to see him like this. Hurts too damn much to lose. [Then, resolute:] I’ll never let this happen to me. Never.

Ha! Is Stone kidding? As if such a scene of the Bush family is remotely possible. As if Barbara Bush would consider the Reagan years a "mess." As if Barbara Bush would hear her son talk and wonder if he had suddenly broken his many years of sobriety. Triggered why? Because "W" was mouthing war-mongering stuff (and doubtless clinging to such thoughts for later so as to avenge his father's "failure" in Iraq). As if "W" had planned to run for president even before his father's first term was over and three years before he became governor of Texas. And, frankly, as if George H.W. Bush — a gentleman, a battle-scarred WWII vet, and the former head of the CIA — would actually weep over losing an election that he spent months acting like he didn't want to win anyway. Oh, and, for the record, George W. Bush is not "junior," since he has a different full name from his father.

But put all that Bush Derangement Syndrome stuff aside. If that stilted dialogue is actually spoken on screen, I might just have to see the movie. It will be the comedy of the year. Josh Brolin as "W"! Richard Dreyfus as Cheney! Scott Glen as Rummy! Elizabeth Banks as Laura!

(Sigh). I have always admired Glen's acting. And Banks has been great in the Judd Apatow comedies. Oh, well. If they want to commit career suicide, that's their choice.

Libertas (now known as the LibertyFilmFestival.com) linked to a LA Times account of the script for Oliver Stone's take on the current president, "W." No one who has seen Stone popularize a new narrative for the JFK assassination, or savage Nixon, expects this film to be fair to George W. Bush. And we conservatives should be grateful that he didn't just name the film "Chimpy McBusHitler: The rise of a dangerous moron." Small victory, I guess.

But the script — the script! It sends the unintentional comedy scale off the charts. Behold this excerpt from a scene that Stone imagines happened on the night when George H.W. Bush lost to Bill Clinton:

Int. Houstonian Hotel–Suite–Houston, Texas–November 1992

[George Jr. turns off the TV. Sr. begins weeping. W looks at his father, jarred, never seen him so emotional, so broken.]

Barbara: The best person didn’t win, George. The best man did not win tonight.

Bush Sr.: It hurts. Hurts so bad. My pride … I don’t like to see those who wrote me off be right. But I was wrong and they were right….That hurts more than anything.

Barbara: He is so beneath you. He doesn’t deserve to be President. And wouldn’t be if it wasn’t for the liberal media, the New York Times, blaming you for Reagan’s mess.

[George Jr. puts hand on his father’s shoulder.]

Bush Jr.: Poppy, you were a great President. Great President.

Bush Sr.: Gave it all I could. Thought the war would have carried us. Guess I reached my level, son.

Bush Jr.: Nah. Maybe, if you had just clobbered the [SOB].

Bush Sr.: Huh?

Bush Jr.: Gone all the way. To Baghdad. Cleaned his clock.

Barbara: (sharply to Laura) Did he imbibe in something I don’t know about?

Bush Jr.: Don’t start that. I was talking about decisiveness. Finishing. What I’ve always been told.

Barbara: You’d better stop this. Zip it up, right now, you hear me.

[Jr. backs away, turns.]

Bush Sr.: (sharply to Jr.) I won that war.

Bush Jr.: ‘Course you did, Poppy.

BEDROOM - MOMENTS LATER

Laura: What was that all about?

Bush Jr.: Be damned if I know. Never seen him like this before. It’s strange.

Laura: It’s hard. He knows that this is the end.

Bush Jr.: If Atwater hadn’t died. If he had listened to me and attacked, attacked, attacked! Might have turned out different.

Laura: No. That’s not what this is about. His health, all the medications he’s been taking. He doesn’t have the strength, the fire he had before. He knows.

[Jr. sadly peers at the hunched figure of his father.]

Bush Jr.: Can’t bear to see him like this. Hurts too damn much to lose. [Then, resolute:] I’ll never let this happen to me. Never.

Ha! Is Stone kidding? As if such a scene of the Bush family is remotely possible. As if Barbara Bush would consider the Reagan years a "mess." As if Barbara Bush would hear her son talk and wonder if he had suddenly broken his many years of sobriety. Triggered why? Because "W" was mouthing war-mongering stuff (and doubtless clinging to such thoughts for later so as to avenge his father's "failure" in Iraq). As if "W" had planned to run for president even before his father's first term was over and three years before he became governor of Texas. And, frankly, as if George H.W. Bush — a gentleman, a battle-scarred WWII vet, and the former head of the CIA — would actually weep over losing an election that he spent months acting like he didn't want to win anyway.

But put all that Bush Derangement Syndrome stuff aside. If that stilted dialogue is actually spoken on screen, I might just have to see the movie. It will be the comedy of the year.

Then you'll love (or hate) this.

Brilliant. I love how the company is working on "The World of World of Warcraft, World of Warcraft realm."

Of course.

Eventually, I'll have an avitar hitting F9 and F10 and putting in blog codes for me. And, naturally, those "people" will be monkeys.