As I was watching the new Batman movie, "The Dark Night," I couldn't help but observe the metaphors between George W. Bush and Batman.I thought it was neat how people didn't like Batman, but Batman didn't care because he knew he was doing the right thing.
And, oddly enough, as I'm reading the news today, I come across Andrew Klavan's latest column rightfully titled, "What Bush and Batman have in common."
At first I thought it was just my mind playing tricks on me. But now that I find that other people have had the same observation, I know I'm not far off. That the movie that is breaking every movie record in the books is not a liberal movie at all, but extremely conservative.
Klaven writes, "A cry for help goes out from a city beleaguered by violence and fear: A beam of light flashed into the night sky, the dark symbol of a bat projected onto the surface of the racing clouds . . .
"Oh, wait a minute. That's not a bat, actually. In fact, when you trace the outline with your finger, it looks kind of like . . . a 'W.'"
It was a W. It was George Bush.
I cannot word it better than Klaven:
There seems to me no question that the Batman film "The Dark Knight," currently breaking every box office record in history, is at some level 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. Like W, Batman is vilified and despised for confronting terrorists in the only terms they understand. 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
"And like W, Batman understands that there is no moral equivalence between a free society -- in which people sometimes make the wrong choices -- and a criminal sect bent on destruction. The former must be cherished even in its moments of folly; the latter must be hounded to the gates of Hell
"The Dark Knight," then, is a conservative movie about the war on terror."
George Bush has been the embodiment of doing what is right by tackling the bad guys and then biting his tongue when he is criticized because he is an honorable man who cares more about his nation and protecting Americans than he does about his pride.
As Kraven writes, "Doing what's right is hard, and speaking the truth is dangerous. Many have been abhorred for it, some killed, one crucified."
The left doesn't understand that in order to defeat evil, you have to feign to be evil yourself. If you continue to try to appease, you will be stabbed in the back every time. And that is exactly what Batman and Bush understand.
"Left and right, all Americans know that freedom is better than slavery, that love is better than hate, kindness better than cruelty, tolerance better than bigotry. We don't always know how we know these things, and yet mysteriously we know them nonetheless.
"The true complexity arises when we must defend these values in a world that does not universally embrace them -- when we reach the place where we must be intolerant in order to defend tolerance, or unkind in order to defend kindness, or hateful in order to defend what we love.
"When heroes arise who take those difficult duties on themselves, it is tempting for the rest of us to turn our backs on them, to vilify them in order to protect our own appearance of righteousness. We prosecute and execrate the violent soldier or the cruel interrogator in order to parade ourselves as paragons of the peaceful values they preserve. As Gary Oldman's Commissioner Gordon says of the hated and hunted Batman, 'He has to run away -- because we have to chase him.'
"That's real moral complexity. 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."
I'm telling you, this was an awesome movie. The terrorists have no boundaries, and they do not follow any humane rules of war. They will do whatever it takes to win. And, in order to defeat the terrorists, we must, in a sense, stoop to their level and administer the types of punishment that they understand, and fear -- lest they will not stop terrorizing.
Waterboarding is cruel, but the terrorist will not think twice about doing that to us. They will not think twice about cutting off our heads in the name of their God. They do not think twice about placing a bucket of nails in their suicide bombers vests in order to kill as many innocent civilians as possible.
Thus, these are people who can not be appeased, they must be stopped by whatever means possible. And Batman, aka George Bush, did that in this move. He did it near the end when he used a GPS system to taper into all the cell phones in the world. People had to give up a little of their liberties in the name of freedom.
This is not unlike a program Bush used to intercept phone calls between a terrorist on the outside and a citizen on the inside. Liberals were against this and called it spying. And it is hard to give up our freedoms this way, as Batman's friend was concerned about it in the movie.
But that was realistic. It was a perfect metaphor to a real situation in America today. Bush and Batman are defending what is right; defending freedom. And, in the process, they become hated because they are seen as the bad guys because the true bad guys are are in the shadows, are in prison, or dead.
Since we do not see the real danger, we hate the hunters. That is why Bush and Batman are so unpopular, even though they are doing the right thing.
The left, man, they would rather give up their freedom than fight for it. They would rather appease the offenders and hope this causes them to love us more. When, in reality, this only gives the enemy greater strength, just like Carter and Clinton appeased North Korea, and that nation now has nuclear capabilities.
A great movie. You must see it.
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