The other day on my birthday my friend Terry Bush took me to the movies to see Jack Reacher, featuring Tom Cruise.
The film is an action film that just keeps going.
More punches and bullets per minute than the normal flick.
But right in the middle of the movie is a curious little scene.
A political scene.
There on the wall of the questionable prosecuting attorney's wall is a picture of the President of the United States.
Not President Obama.
But former President - George W. Bush.
Nothing in the film makes it a "period piece" for the years 2001-2009, even if Reacher stories were published over several years.
It's a film of today.
But with a President of yesterday.
Why? President Obama has been President for 4 years! Yet he's never shown as the head of a shadowy war-focused federal government.
Never.
Again, why Bush? To create an evil effect that envelopes the film's faux-attorney, as if to say in a not-so-subtle fashion: "Characters who support W are not trustworthy."
But it doesn't stop there. Other films persistently enlist W as an evil extra, hung on the wall like a political pinata - ready for any viewer's swing of the bat.
On television, you'll often see blurred images of Bush and former VP Dick Cheney hung on the walls of fairly nefefaious individuals
Bush the Evil seems to be an all-too-easy target.
Apparently George W. Bush can never leave the Hollywood West Wing set.
4 more years?
My guess, W's in for it, for many more years than that.
Den
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