At 'Frost/Nixon' Debut, It Became About Bush and Nixon
By Nikki Schwab, Washington Whispers
No wonder British screenwriter Peter Morgan said he was nervous to have his new flick Frost/Nixon debut in front of a D.C. crowd. He realized that with a house packed full of Washington journos, the audience surely knew more about former President Nixon than he did. And the discussion could get heated. That's why he mainly stuck to dissing the British half of the Frost/Nixon duo: "I still think I wasn't tough enough on Frost," he says. Morgan wrote a play, and then the film, shown at a Washington screening last night, which dramatizes the 1977 interviews between British talk show host David Frost and former American prez Richard Nixon. When reading Frost's "extraordinary self-aggrandizing lopsided version of events," Morgan almost shied away from writing Frost/Nixon. And he found it particularly in bad taste that Frost had paid Nixon for the sit-down. "I can't apologize for David Frost—I think it's contemptible," Morgan said at a panel discussion after the movie.
He left most of the Nixon-bashing to the other panelists—director Ron Howard and James Reston, the author and former Frost researcher who inspired the narrator character in the film. And they had no qualms about making a George W. Bush/Nixon comparison. That assertion did not go over well with attendee Chris Wallace, host of Fox News Sunday, who initiated a prickly exchange with the panel's moderator, historian Robert Dallek. Wallace received applause from the audience for his defense of Bush, and Fox News sent the following to Whispers today touting the heated conversation as "Wallace takes on Hollywood!"
At the Frost/Nixon screening last night, Ron Howard and show writers compared GWB's abuses of power to Nixon's. Wallace disagreed..."It trivializes Nixon's crimes and completely misrepresents what George W. Bush did...I think to compare what Nixon did, and the abuses of power for pure political self-preservation, to George W. Bush trying to protect this country—even if you disagree with rendition or waterboarding—it seems to me is both a gross misreading of history both then and now." He also had a healthy debate with renowned historian Robert Dallek.
Despite the drama, Morgan told Whispers he thought the screening was a success and that he may have wooed over one of his most difficult audiences. And that included Wallace, who said the movie was terrific and it gave a new understanding to Richard Nixon.
Tags: Richard M. Nixon
Tools: 
Share
|
| Comments (9) | Print
Reader Comments
Nixon vs. Bush as worse
The reason the U.S. hasn't been attacked after 9/11 has little to do with George's leadership and a lot to do with security agency complacency being corrected. The first attack on the World Trade Center was akin to a mainland Pearl Harbor and the bombings overseas gave us the opportunity to tighten security once intelligence discoverd the financing and source of those attacks. The day the towers came down was very revealing as to how slow GW reacted in front of those children when given the news versus how fast he moved (to save himself) when a shoe was flying towards his head. You would have thought by his dazed look that he had the same oblivious mentality as those kids.
Bad, Worse or Worst - does it really matter? Thousands died unnecessarily here and abroad in a war that has gained the U.S. nothing thus far, least not better security. Nixon lived in the same bubble as GW and to his dying day believed he was morally right having made the policy decisions that ignored congress and divided the country. Instead maybe the question that should be asked is, who lead the most divisive party in history and divided the country, bringing it to a standstill? What administration had typified immorality more than any other and stood by those that severly hurt the nation economically?
Iraq is at the precipice of civil war, not because of political tactics to sway voters as was used by the Nixon and GW teams, but because of historical hatred and mistrust in a culture far different than the west's. Nixon believed more death would force a peace in Vietnam and end in a win; GW believed that improvisation in Iraq from WMD's to the seeding of democracy in the Arab world would make the war honorable and worth the montrous costs. Both were dead wrong. The means were squandered and the ends unrealistic.
Time will be as unkind to GW's legacy as it was to Nixon's and for reasons that are recorded and open to the public. Though Nixon was far more intelligent than GW, he, like many of presidential top advisors that have hurt America, let faulty reasoning neutralize realities that ignored unrealized expectations.
Fox network rants and the outdated GOP mantra have been firmly rejected by voters. Change was inevitable and not just because Obama won. McCain would have rejected most of GW's policies and maybe faced grave problems that need correction. Or maybe not. It's just a shame that GW was incapable of realizing that history didn't start the day he took office and that when historical lessons are ignored, things end badly. Power has indeed, corrupted.
Nixon GWB comparisons are obsurd
We can't even see Nixon's presidency clearly through the eyes of history. But every one seems to be able to see GWB's.
When are we going to see movies as movies and not as history.
My Austrian family is still offended at the movie/play Amadeus as a historic interpretation of Mozart's life and death. But many believe it to be true.
Nixon GWB comparisons are obsurd
We can't even see Nixon's presidency clearly through the eyes of history. But every one seems to be able to see GWB's.
When are we going to see movies as movies and not as history.
My Austrian family is still offended at the movie/play Amadeus as a historic interpretation of Mozart's life and death. But many believe it to be true.
advertisement
