A post by Maynard

The 2007 movie Charlie Wilson’s War is showing this month on HBO. It’s a fact-based docudrama about Texas politician Charlie Wilson‘s role in crafting the policy which drove the Soviet Union out of Afghanistan during the Reagan years.

An odd aspect of this film is that it came from the “liberal” side, and it makes the point that liberals (or at least some of them) regarded the USSR as an evil worth fighting. It challenges the perception of Democrats as being philosophically impotent in dealing with the monsters of the world. Of course, anyone who lived through the era knows there were plenty of Democrats who denied any moral difference between Russia and America, and who hated Reagan more than they hated the “evil empire”.

Also, in its focus on Wilson, there’s scant mention of Carter or Reagan or the first George Bush. I can’t help but think that the story is more than a little bit skewed to avoid acknowledging Reagan’s importance.

Even with its possible flaws, the story is worth watching, and is generally favorably regarded from the “conservative” camp. There’s also an amiable element of political incorrectness, in that Wilson is shown as a playboy and a boozehound…which are not admirable traits, but they pale into insignificance in light of his determination to give the Russians a bloody nose. (The playboy stuff renders the film not quite ready for prime time, and may offend some viewers.)

And speaking of HBO, here’s their announcement of a House of Saddam mini-series starting this Sunday, based on the life of Saddam Hussein. I’ll have to have a look at that one. I wonder if they’re going to blame it all on Reagan and the CIA?

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3 Comments | Leave a comment
  1. ffigtree says:

    Though, we didn’t like the movie, the story is very intriguing. Events during this time led to the Middle East we have today. Well not exactly today but pre 9/11.

  2. Lamplighter says:

    I tend to be skeptical when I see a movie that is loaded with liberals. You can’t take it for granted that because it’s “fact based” that they won’t use a lot of creative license.
    Consider “Birdman of Alcatraz”. Robert Stroud, played by Burt Lancaster, was portrayed as a man with flaws (like murdering people) but who was decent, honorable, and intelligent. In reality, he was certainly intelligent. He was also deranged and vengeful. At his parole hearing he stated he wanted to be freed because he “had so many people to kill and so little time”. He also spent his time writing child pornography. Little boys were his favorite topic.
    Charlie Wilson is portrayed as a liberal representing a conservative district that wants nothing but their guns and religion. The film sticks up for the ACLU in a scene where a local contributer wants a nativity scene to remain in front of the fire station. Wilson, of course, the wise liberal who has to keep the ignorant reactionaries in line wins the argument. The film also seems to take a shot at Rudy Giuliani, who investigated Wilson for cocaine use. Wilson wins the day again since he used cocaine in the Cayman Islands where the US has no jurisdiction. The impression is that because Rudi failed in his attempt to “persecute” Wilson, Wilson was able to go on to win the cold war single-handedly.
    The Clintonesque Wilson demonstrates that the flippant, hedonistic, and at times sexist Democrats are really alright and will get the job done. Character issues are irrelevent and infantile.
    The other message seems to be that, contrary to popular belief, Democrats are actually hawkish and don’t like communism.
    Now I realize that Charlie Wilson may have been a Democrat similar to Zell Miller, but I can’t help but get the impression that the Dems are hopping on the Wilson story to convince us they’re something they’re not. The latest Indian Jones movie was loaded with liberals and the Russian communists were the bad guys.
    Twenty years after the fall of the Soviet Union, the liberals are telling us how evil this empire was and they never liked them.
    It’s like the bully of the neighborhood getting killed and the liberals, who were terrified of the bully and even sucked up to him, now stand around and say “I was never scared of him! I used to kick his ass!”

  3. Dave J says:

    The best thing about the movie was Phillip Seymour Hoffman as the CIA guy: brilliant and hilarious.

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