There's no hope for Bush
The new film Frost/Nixon sadly reminds Americans that they will never see George Bush admit his own guilt in an interview Annie Lowrey
guardian.co.uk, Friday December 5 2008 20.00 GMT
July 2009. Barack Obama endures as president, coping admirably, but just coping, with a global deflationary spiral, wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and nuclear brinkmanship between India and Pakistan. Quarter upon quarter, the economy shrinks. An early-season hurricane destroys what remains of New Orleans. The putative father of these struggles, former President George Bush, agrees to his first television interview since leaving office. He's been having trouble even on the far-right lecture circuit, and rumour has it that the interview's producers are paying him an outrageous sum.
Ryan Seacrest, antiseptic orange presenter, faces the older, thinner Bush. He smirks and shadowboxes through the interviews, evincing a charm unremembered by many for a decade. But in the final interview, dramatically, he admits the utter illegality of his constitution-shredding execution of the Iraq war and the torture of dozens of innocent people. The final televised image of the much-loathed president is of a tragic figure and a defeated man.
Oh, if the new Hollywood flick Frost/Nixon were Seacrest/Bush, the imaginary film floating behind it like a ghost! At its debut for an audience of Washington bigwigs at the National Geographic Society on Monday night, James Reston, who helped British journalist David Frost prep for the 1977 interview with Richard Nixon, described it as such: "a metaphor for George W Bush", and a meditation on presidential ignobility.
Ron Howard, purveyor of brilliant Americana from Happy Days to American Graffiti to Apollo 13, directs the film in documentary style and commissioned its adaptation from the Tony-nominated play. The major characters from the Frost side of the battle – the interviewer himself, his girlfriend, his aides, his producer – address the camera candidly and often. Nixon's do so only occasionally, always sneering or stiff-lipping. (It's always clear whose corner we're in, boxing being one of playwright and screenwriter Peter Morgan's données.) .......(more)
The complete piece is at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2008/dec/05/film-frost-nixon-interview
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