Dubya as comic book superhero? How is that any less weird  than Obama as religious figure?

Beautiful.  America no longer loves Bush.  But we love Batman, so we love Bush.  Ladies and gentleman, American conservative thought, circa 2008.

Wow, the WSJ really has jumped the shark.

Is this the Murdoch line?

He is the Bat.

I don't what's worse - that the WSJ decided to devote valuable column space to a piece about Batman, or that they managed to pick an author who missed the fact that the entire plot of the movie centered around Batman's realization that his way of doing business was doomed to failure.

Scire obviously is familiar with the Daily Show's running comic book caricature of President Bush, "The Decider."

"Like W, Batman sometimes has to push the boundaries of civil rights to deal with an emergency, certain that he will re-establish those boundaries when the emergency is past."

Yep, so was Chancellor Palpatine.

[/nerd]

"And when our artistic community is ready to show that sometimes men must kill in order to preserve life; that sometimes they must violate their values in order to maintain those values; and that while movie stars may strut in the bright light of our adulation for pretending to be heroes, true heroes often must slink in the shadows, slump-shouldered and despised -- then and only then will we be able to pay President Bush his due and make good and true films about the war on terror."

Most hilarious op-ed ever? I think so! Slump-shouldered and despised conservatives might be voted out of power, but at least they've got comic books.

Captain America still dead? I lost track of that one.

Scarecrow is the Batman character most reminiscent of W.

alittleblackegg- Captain America is indeed still dead, but there's a new guy wearing the uniform.

Bush has always been an action movie president. Meaning that if you are the type of person who sees action movies as an accurate depiction of reality, then you're also the kind of dimwit who sees Bush as a hero. look over at The Corner, where they use plotlines of '24' as support for their world view.

Conservatives have been retreating into fantasy for years. Now I guess they're ready to start putting on costumes.

tnmats, I have an image of ol' Rupert on water skis saying "Wheeee!!!" while in the air.

The article is kind of ridiculous, but really this isn't so far-fetched as it might seem. Consider how this Batman isn't quite the cut-and-dry hero that he's been for the rest of the franchise: his interrogation methods are suspect, for instance, and his phone-tapping plan raises Morgan Freeman's eyebrows.

While I'd be wary of drawing any direct analogies -- I think that <i>The Dark Knight</i> is more concerned with attendant concerns to the idea of terrorism than with advocacy -- it does also highlight the political consequences of unpopular, difficult decisions. But ultimately the image of Batman that you leave the theater with is not a wholly positive one.

What's the biggest difference between Batman and George W.? Batman actually has a degree of competence at what he does. Putting aside all concerns of morality, justice, and the Constitution, if the Iraq War was going well, if prisoners at Gitmo had revealed useful intelligence while being tortured, if the regressive tax cuts had spurred the economy, and if the Hackocracy had actually been competent enough to do their jobs correctly, people would be a lot less dissatisfied with Bush.

"sometimes men must kill in order to preserve life; that sometimes they must violate their values in order to maintain those values;" Your honor, I had to rob from the bank in order to protect the banking system.

It says at the bottom the guy is a mystery writer, how apt since it is a mystery to me how anyone can read his addleminded crap. I think his denouements generally have the jihadist in the library with a Koran/gun as the guilty party.

Ackyri- Good call on Palpatine!  

To one up you on the nerd thing though, another Captain America showed up (and I'm not sure if this is what miceelf was referencing), but he turned out to be a Skrull.  

I was as disappointed as Spiderman was in that issue...  

I hope this doesn't spoil any part of what was an excellent film for anyone who has not seen it, but this WSJ column is sort of like that list of the "Best Conservative Rock Songs" from a couple years ago -- when you want to see your message in something, you can twist plot details into one wicked pretzel.

Sadly, this WSJ article is not the first articulation I've heard this warped message from The Dark Knight. Most of the conservatives have honed in on the scene late in the film where Batman has invaded the privacy of the entire city using their cell phones and some variety of sonar technology as proof that Batman  is OK with violating privacy and civil liberty to get the job done. However, Batman also destroys the machine after a single use; he doesn't lobby and demand that it become a permanent part of his Bat-arsenal.

Secondly, the WSJ column ignores what is easily the film's most powerful scene -- Batman's interrogation of The Joker. With Harvey Dent missing and Joker clearly behind it, Batman interrogates Heath Ledger's brilliant Joker by beating him. After a few rounds of beating, the Joker reveals that he is holding not just Dent captive, but also Batman and Dent's love interest. Batman proceeds to beat up Joker even more. Joker then remarks that for all his strength, Batman doesn't really have anything on him and cannot beat the information out of him. Joker gives up the information as to the locations of the hostages when he feels like it. Both hostages, meanwhile, have just minutes to live before bombs go off

Isn't that scene the exact "24" style example that Republicans turn to when they stress the need for torture? The ticking bomb, the need for information at any cost -- send in Rudy Giuliani!

And what does Batman get from beating information out of the Joker? Nothing -- the beating doesn't get him the detectives or hero anything. In fact, the beating it out of the suspect results in the Joker giving up information that is intentionally incorrect (which was his plan to begin with) and then engineering an escape. So there's your lesson: Torture doesn't just not work, it results in bad information. It could not have been spelled out more clearly unless after beating up the Joker Batman decided to go bomb Iraq.

So even if we overlook the fact that the WSJ author is now comparing real-world global affairs to comic book movies and take this guy at his word, it shows that conservatives are really no better at interpreting film than they are music. Alternatively, you can believe that there is a conservative message in "You Can't Always Get What You Want," by The Rolling Stones. www.nytimes.com/.../25brockweb.html

Is the new Batman movie a tribute to the Bush administration? I was so excited, I saw The Dark Knight opening night. When it was over, I had mixed feelings. Buried in the convoluted plot were some queasy ideas about...

jhunger. Sorry I haven't been following the skrull storyline. The current Captain America comic has Bucky/Winter Soldier wearing (and trying to live up to) the Captain America uniform.