The CIA vs. the CEO - Part 3.

As a matter of fact, yes. You ARE going under the bus.

Great cinema, like great literature, captures timeless truths like dragonflies in amber. The crisis of conscience of Huck Finn or the duplicity of Uriah Heep or the calm rationalization of the homicidally insane narrator of “The Tell-Tale Heart” all ring as true today as the day pen met paper. And that it no accident.

Artists – great artists – virtually never just spla all over the canvas or foolscape or LCD in one go and produce a masterpiece. Paul Valéry famously said that, “A poem is never finished, it is only abandoned." and its quite true across all creative domains.

They go over it and over it, smoothing out lines, swapping out whole sections, changing the tone, killing and creating characters (which they may love or hate) with equal, God-like “Like flies to wanton boys” abandon, even shredding months or years of effort to changing the point-of-view of narrative because the story simply demands it.

Art does that: it demands things.

So when a particular artist has summed up a particular aspect of reality perfectly, the best we mere mortals can do is step aside and let him march, boys.

Let the man march!

Spoiler Alert: This is the last slip of dialogue from Stanley Kubrick's "Paths of Glory", which I would argue qualifies as just such a near-perfect work of art (see Parts 1 & 2 of this ramble to make sense of why it is here.) If you haven’t seen it, stop reading this right now and go rent it.

But it isn't just are for its time: it is Art for all time, and for that reason I think it also accurately sums up what’ll be happening to Donald Rumsfeld once the wheels start to come off the Bush Clown Car, and Dubya needs a large enough slab of ballast to heave over the side.

General Broulard: I'm awfully glad you could be there, George. This sort of thing is always rather grim. t this had splendor, don't you think? I have never seen an affair of this sort handled any better. The men died wonderfully. There's always that chance...that one will do something that will leave everyone with a bad taste. This time, you couldn't ask for better. Yes?

Yes, Colonel?

Colonel Dax: You wanted to see me, sir.

General Broulard; Oh, yes. Come in, Colonel. Come in and sit down. Colonel, your men died very well.

General Broulard: Would you like some coffee, Colonel?

Colonel Dax: No, thank you, sir.

General Broulard: Paul, it's been brought to my attention that you ordered your artillery...to fire on your own men during the attack on the Ant Hill.

- I did what? Who told you that?

General Broulard: Colonel Dax came to me last night with the story.

General Mireau: I've always known you were a disloyal officer...but I never dreamed you would stoop to anything so low as this.

General Broulard: I've sworn statements from Captain Nichols, your artillery spotter...Captain Rousseau, the battery commander who refused your order.

General Mireau: I think it's absolutely infamous.

General Broulard: Then there's no truth to the charge made by Colonel Dax?

General Mireau: I don't see how you could even ask me that.

General Broulard: You cannot imagine how glad I am to hear that, Paul. I'm certain you'll come through it all right.

General Mireau: I'll come through what?

General Broulard: There'll have to be an inquiry.

General Mireau: An inquiry?

General Broulard: Those things, the public forgets.

General Mireau: Public?

General Broulard: You've got to clear your name. You cannot allow such vile insinuations against your character to go undenied.

General Mireau: So that's it. You're making me the goat. The only completely innocent man in this whole affair. I have only one last thing to say to you, George. The man you stabbed in the back is a soldier.

General Broulard: Well...it had to be done. France cannot afford to have fools guiding her military destiny. I'm grateful to you for having brought this matter to my attention. Colonel, how would you like General Mireau's job?

Colonel Dax: His what?

General Broulard: His job.

Colonel Dax: Let me get this straight, sir. You're offering me General Mireau's command?

General Broulard: Come, come, Colonel Dax. Don't overdo the surprise. You've been after the job from the start. We all know that, my boy.

Colonel Dax: I may be many things, sir, but I am not your boy.

General Broulard: Well, I certainly didn't mean to imply any biological relationship.


Colonel Dax: I'm not your boy in any sense.

General Broulard: Are you trying to provoke me, Colonel?

Colonel Dax: Why should I want to do that?

General Broulard: Exactly. It would be a pity...to lose your promotion before you get it. A promotion you have so very carefully planned for.

Colonel Dax: Sir, would you like me to suggest what you can do with that promotion?

General Broulard: Colonel, you will apologize at once or shall be placed under arrest!

Colonel Dax: I apologize for not being entirely honest with you. I apologize for not revealing my true feelings. I apologize for not telling you sooner...that you're a degenerate, sadistic old man. And you can go to hell before I apologize to you now or ever again!

General Broulard: Colonel Dax, you're a disappointment to me. You've spoiled the keenness of your mind by wallowing in sentimentality. You really did want to save those men...and you were not angling for Mireau's command. You're an idealist, and I pity you as I would the village idiot. We're fighting a war, a war that we've got to win. Those men didn't fight, so they were shot. You bring charges against General Mireau, so I insist he answer them. Wherein have I done wrong?

Colonel Dax: Because you don't know the answer to that question...I pity you.

These men – the fictional ones, and those that currently run our country – simply do not comprehend the notion of right and wrong.

They are creatures of craft and tactics, feign and betrayal, boot-licking and back-stabbing…all to advance their position, station and power.

Bushworld is a world of presumed monarchical privilege. People who rule based on no principle other than their inbred belief that it is their Divine Right to do so, and in that domain the reason for everything is power for power’s sake. Sometimes they choose – for brief interludes – to act as benevolent tyrants. At other times they lapse back into their natural, Bushie state: Peevish, feeble-minded autocrats.

In either state, their worldview remains absolutely anathema to Democracy. And in either state they do not know what to make of anyone who acts out of a sense of compassion or justice or sense of concern for the common good, except to mock and slander them.

We will never be rid of such morally stillborn monsters, but the least we can do is never, ever let them anywhere near positions of unchecked authority.