FAIR GAME DEPICTS HOW THE CIA OPERATED UNDER THE “COMMAND” OF DICK CHENEY
According to the Constitution, the Vice President of the United States presides over the Senate, where he can decide a tie vote. Fair Game reveals Cheney’s megalomaniacal quest to establish his “1% doctrine,” that is, that the American government must act decisively on covert intelligence even if there is only a 1% chance that information about an impending attack on the United States is true. The docudrama, directed by Doug Liman, brings to the screen several facts with 100% reliability, notably that George W. Bush cited “evidence” in his 2003 State of the Union address that the CIA knew to be false, onetime American ambassador to Niger Joseph Wilson (played by Sean Penn) wrote an op-ed in the New York Times disputing Bush’s claim that Niger sold uranium yellowcake to Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, and Valery Plame (Wilson’s spouse, played by Naomi Watts) was outed as a covert CIA agent by someone in the White House in retaliation for Wilson’s essay. Other facts, often forgotten in the years since 2003, are also revealed in the film–that weapons inspectors were responsible for destroying the infrastructure for Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction programs shortly after the Gulf War of 1991, and that aluminum tubes purchased by Iraq sometime before 2003 were not capable of building a centrifuge for a nuclear weapons program, as Bush claimed. Based on Plame’s Fair Game (2007) and Wilson’s The Politics of Truth: Inside the Lies That Led to War and Betrayed My Wife’s CIA Identity (2004), the film goes behind the scenes to meetings inside the CIA, intelligence gathering trips by Plame and Wilson, the way in which the White House intimidates Plame, Wilson’s public speeches denouncing the Bush administration, and how Wilson’s op-ed serves to complicate their marriage. The inference is that White House attempts to discredit Wilson succeeded in discouraging others from coming to his defense or they might also become “fair game” in Bush’s politics of personal destruction, which also involves serving up “Scooter” Liddy (played by David Andrews) as the fall guy and then commuting his sentence. Most revealing of all, Fair Game notes the effect of her outing on several ongoing covert ops that she sets up but are then stopped, notably a plan to help Iraqi nuclear scientists to reach safety before the “shock and awe” attack of 2003. The suggestion is planted that some defected to Tehran and have been responsible for the development of Iran’s nuclear program over the past seven years while others were left exposed and killed. Interestingly, the film’s release is timed to coincide with the booklaunching of Bush’s Decision Points. The film is a paradigm case of why the Political Film Society gives awards in the category “best film exposé” each year, and indeed Fair Game has been so nominated. MH
WAITING FOR “SUPERMAN” IS BASED ON A MYTH
The documentary Waiting for “Superman” is based on a false premise. Directed by Davis Guggenheim, the film focuses on applicants for admission to charter schools who pin their hopes on being accepted so that their lives will be forever transformed. The film, scathingly reviewed by Diane Ravitch in the November 11, 2010, issue of the New York Review of Books, pretends that charter schools are the magic answer to save the country from failing schools. Whereas the film dramatizes those who wait for their names to be selected in lotteries, Ravich points out that student performance in charter schools is neither better nor worse on the average than in public schools. What is different is that administrators of charter schools, who are not always professional educators, have more autonomy than principals of public schools. Ravich also points out that charter schools are sometimes moneymaking scams. What does make a difference for students is the involvement of and encouragement by parents. MH