Batman = Bush? Not hardly
Image via WikipediaI’m a little late on this, but just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to comment.
Dr. Steven Taylor knocks a few major holes in the ridiculous assertion in the op-ed pages of the Wall Street Journal that President George W. Bush is somehow akin to Batman of “The Dark Knight.” Taylor’s critique is worth a read, but makes me question the wisdom of the Wall Street Journal op-ed editors for putting that type of nonsense in valuable newsprint.
Taylor’s ultimate sentence is an excellent summation:
There is no such easy path in the real world, which is why comic books and fantasy novels aren’t particularly good blueprints for foreign policy.
One thing that is somewhat troubling to me about Mr. Klavan’s twisted logic (something Taylor doesn’t touch on in his critique) is the assumption that there is some sort of moral equivalence between an elected official and a masked vigilante. Klavan writes:
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.
It is one thing for a masked vigilante in a piece of fiction to “confront villains in the only terms they know.” It is quite another to suggest that the President of the United States, the most powerful elected official in the world, should be praised for stooping to the level of terrorists (it appears that’s what Klavan is praising).
Also, note that the Batman himself engaged the Joker and his henchmen, the mob and other criminals. The president uses the armed forces of the United States. Big difference there.
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