Memo to Joe Lieberman: three faces are not as good as one

And so Joe Lieberman, after completing his Harvey Dent to Two-Face transition months ago, is trying to praise Obama again in order to save face after a poisonous McCain endorsement. Which is about as realistic as reconstructing Two-Face's face/soul back to what it was before. Does this make Sarah Palin Rachel Dawes (Katie Holmes version, not Maggie Gyllenhaal)?

By the way, after having to spend 4 years explaining why Joe Lieberman is the Jerry Falwell of Jews, I feel like I don't have to explain it anymore. That's something, at least.

Lieberman: I Respect Obama [TPM Election Central]

John McCain: a creepier Batman villlain than Heath Ledger

Watch video, cue nightmares:

(via Wonkette).

Batman and The Simpsons, together at last

There are few things I like more than Batman and the Simpsons. One of them is Batman in the Simpsons. This fan art blog in honor of the Dark Knight has made me reconsider my entire bias towards fan art. [Springfield Punx]

Bush is not Batman!

If he was, he would be the Batman and Robin version of Batman (though seeing Bush's nipples in a rubber suit may make me vomit). Apologies to Fire Joe Morgan, but I must use their style to call out Andrew Klavan of the Wall Street Journal for his Republican wet dream. Trying to milk The Dark Knight for his own political purposes, Klavan has drawn a comparison (for which there could be "no question") between Chris Nolan's Batman and Dick Cheney's President Bush.

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."

Yes, because when Bob Kane and Billy Finger created Batman in 1939, they actually had superhuman future predicting powers, and could predict the middle name of their President/superhero 69 years later. Additionally, God must have been a Bush supporter 50 million years ago when he designed the bone structure of bats to coincide with the development of the Roman alphabet around Jesus time and the middle name of the President today. God is on Bush's side after all.

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.

Yes, there's no question that everyone loves Batman because of they also love Bush. The 27% of the population that approves of Bush, and the part of the world population that doesn't want him imprisoned for war crimes (or dead), accounted for all $200 million+ the film has made worldwide. Also, Chris Nolan, an Englishman, is secretly a right wing American stooge. Just like Obama is a secret Muslim Manchurian Candidate.

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.

Um, in case you have forgotten, Klavan, Batman doesn't kill anyone. And since 9/11, there hasn't been an active threat in America on the same level of bombing hospitals, blowing up ferries, and murdering mayors, cops, judges, and police commissioners. The civil liberties violations have occurred well after the emergency has past. I'm also pretty sure Batman is against waterboarding, which is probably worse than breaking people's ankles by throwing them off a second story fire escape. Furthermore, Bush hasn't only sometimes pushed boundaries; he's violated fundamental human rights and human dignity at all times whether or not it's been helpful to fighting terrorism. Batman's actually accountable for his actions, and also takes the blame for crimes he hasn't committed for the good of Gotham. Compare that to "we don't torture people."

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.

Except Batman doesn't kill people. The Joker does. And if there's no moral equivalence, how come Batman is seriously disturbed and insane? Did you even see Batman Begin? I guess that would kill the mood of the wet dream.

"The Dark Knight," then, is a conservative movie about the war on terror. And like another such film, last year's "300," "The Dark Knight" is making a fortune depicting the values and necessities that the Bush administration cannot seem to articulate for beans.

Therefore, you are full of shit. You're saying that 300, a nearly panel-by-panel adaptation of a comic book published in 1998, and The Dark Knight, a move directed by and starring Brits, are both Bush propaganda pieces. Really? Maybe Bush can't articulate it because he isn't as hot as Gerard Butler or Christian Bale.

Conversely, time after time, left-wing films about the war on terror -- films like "In The Valley of Elah," "Rendition" and "Redacted" -- which preach moral equivalence and advocate surrender, that disrespect the military and their mission, that seem unable to distinguish the difference between America and Islamo-fascism, have bombed more spectacularly than Operation Shock and Awe.

Why is it then that left-wingers feel free to make their films direct and realistic, whereas Hollywood conservatives have to put on a mask in order to speak what they know to be the truth? Why is it, indeed, that the conservative values that power our defense -- values like morality, faith, self-sacrifice and the nobility of fighting for the right -- only appear in fantasy or comic-inspired films like "300," "Lord of the Rings," "Narnia," "Spiderman 3" and now "The Dark Knight"?

Yes, because liberal Hollywood—wheat grass-drinking, hybrid-driving Hollywood, requires you to be a Bush propagandist in order to get a movie financed. Never mind that 27% approval rating, or the fact that just about everyone wants us out of Iraq immediately. We all know that Bush is right, but can only realize it in an allegorical form. So basically, the only way Bush would be right is if Batman, Spider-Man, and Narnia were real.

The moment filmmakers take on the problem of Islamic terrorism in realistic films, suddenly those values vanish. The good guys become indistinguishable from the bad guys, and we end up denigrating the very heroes who defend us. Why should this be?

The answers to these questions seem to me to be embedded in the story of "The Dark Knight" itself: Doing what's right is hard, and speaking the truth is dangerous. Many have been abhorred for it, some killed, one crucified.

Or, you know, that real life is not a comic book. If soldiers could get killed in Iraq and then hit restart again like it was Halo, then yes, maybe the war wouldn't be so bad. If we could die as many times as Superman or Captain America, then it wouldn't be that bad. But then again, Jesus came back to life, so why can't we all? I guess it's liberals fault we can't all be Jesus.

Leftists frequently complain that right-wing morality is simplistic. Morality is relative, they say; nuanced, complex. They're wrong, of course, even on their own terms.

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.

Yes, and Christians are better than Muslims (and Jews), liberals are worse than conservatives, and Bush is a better president than a sack of doorknobs. 27% of Americans can't be wrong! Wait, what does this have to do with Batman again?

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.

So basically, as Tom Lehrer said, there are some people who don't embrace tolerance, and we should hate people like that. Or else Batman will kick their asses?

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."

Doesn't this sound like it should be read by Don LaFontaine? So I guess the soldier who kills civilians and the waterboarder is basically the equivalent of the loose cannon cop called out by the chief of police. But dammit, he gets the job done. Except when he doesn't. As in real life.

That's real moral complexity.

Lethal Weapon is morally complex?

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.

Yes, Bush is in the shadows. That's why his torturing, wiretapping, and War are still firmly imprinted in America's mind. And keep in mind that Batman confessed to a crime as a cover up for Harvey Dent. He didn't actually do anything wrong. Does that make Dick Cheney Two-Face? That would assume Cheney was ever once a crusader for good. So I guess what he's saying is that we'll be sorry when Bush is gone. Maybe, but with a country more likely to have another building blown up after Al Quaeda has gone unchecked, with a country more likely to go underwater because of global warming (or just another hurricane Bush would ignore), a country that has innocent people tortured and guilty people giving false testimonies under torture, we'll be sorry alright. But for a different reason.

This makes me never want to watch 24 ever again.