The Reaction: Bush Is Batman? Holy Batshit!

By J. Thomas Duffy

I, perhaps, must first disclose that I haven't rushed out to be part of the record-breaking box office for the new Brokeback Batman, errr, The Dark Knight movie.

However, it seems that one of Rupert Murdoch's minions, Andrew Klavan (once you read the piece, you'll understand he must be related to Cheers' Cliff; okay, okay, one of them changed the spelling to disassociate himself from the other), has penned a wet dream to our Court-Appointed President (h/t Barry Crimmins) with his "What Bush and Batman Have in Common":

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."

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.

Those are the first three paragraphs, and, as a warning, it gets more noxious as it goes on.

I hazard a guess that the closest The Commander Guy has come to being Batman is, under the guise and cover of Halloween, running around the house in Laura's tights.

Or, maybe they donned costumes in the Bush Grindhouse, when they met to choreograph the torture of suspected enemy combatants.

As you can imagine, bubbling up is a boatload of feedback, dissing and derision on the World Wide Web

Spencer Ackerman, actually, has a good case, calling out Klavan for stealing the idea of his own essay, "Batman's 'Dark Knight' Reflects Cheney Policy; Joker's Senseless, Endless Violence Echoes Al Qaeda."

Read it yourself, but, trust me, Ackerman's is leagues better.

Michael Cohen, at Democracy Arsenal, has THE BEST OP-ED EVER!!!!!

David Neiwert - Must. Stop. Fist … Of … Doom!

Atrios brings it home with his "Bat-tusi."

The Retro Part

The Garlic covered this over two-years ago:

Top Ten Cloves: Difficulties DC Comics' Batman May Have Fighting Osama bin Laden

A little taste:

3. Sidekick Robin will beat to death and overuse the "Holy Mushroom Clouds, Batman" phrase.