George W. Bush: Superstar?

Widely respected critic Jim Hoberman introduces a selection of excerpts and films, guaranteed to boggle the mind… He may never have actually been elected president, but George W. Bush’s elevation to that position in the Dream Life is something new: actual president as fictional protagonist. Bush is Ronald Reagan in reverse -not a professional actor who entered politics but a pre-sold politician who has been reconfigured, packaged, and sold as a media star. What sort of entertainer is the current US President? Spoiled frat boy, reformed drunk, affable cheerleader, third-string member of a B western posse? Americans who confuse `character’ with `personality’ may be comforted to see our maximum leader as a relaxed joker unafraid to pull funny faces, talk with his mouth full, or trot out the old rah-rah-sis-boom-bah. Several incidents in the Iraq war -the semi-fictional Saving Private Lynch saga, the made-for-TV toppling of Sadam Hussein’s statue, the Top Gun photo op with which Bush announced `victory’ -are ready to be excerpted in Republican campaign propaganda. Indeed, Bush inaugurated his election campaign 50 weeks before the 9/11 Memorial Republican Convention with a telefilm dramatizing his exploits on and after that fateful day. Would JFK have had the audacity to promote a docu-dramatization of the Cuban missile crisis as part of his bid for re-election? To paraphrase the title of the cancelled Comedy Central show: That’s Our Bush!