The reason why the closing scene with Jack Nicholson on the stand worked so well, is, of course, we were all rooting for the young attractive Tom Cruise

Not to be too snarky, but this mentality is precisely why Republicans recruit candidates like Michelle Bachman, Sarah Palin, Eric Cantor, etc. These people won't be asked to think about solutions or consider moral dilemnas. Their only job is to win elections and take orders from the back room.

Fictional characters can still serve as role models. Thank God we still have men like Uncle Duke and Jeff Redfern to defend our interests, and journalists like Roland Hedley to speak truth to power.

Yes! I can't be the only one here who always rooted for Darth Vader!

tho i find much in common between real american society and r crumb comics, i am quite sure that most any literary reference deepens (and distorts) our understandings of the world and our place in it through imaginative and creative allusions, memes, metaphors paradigms and archetypes.

that said, it is the freudian analysis of the lit crit response that is always helpful, too, in determining the paranoid schizophrenics who run our country and whose opinions toxify our media.

so this scarborough dude (not to mention dick cheney -- god damn his shit-filled soul to hell) is obviously a danger to himself and others, and someone near him should alert the authorities.

(just speaking literarily here, of course. Of course.)

Am I the only person around sick to death of constant comparisons of life to the 'movies'? It's so juvenile...Chris Matthews does it all the time and it makes him sound like a preteen bore.

Sometimes when I watch Morning Joe I wonder if Joe is exhibiting feigned stupidity or genetic stupidity. I find it disheartening when I hear some of the things that out of his mouth which are entirely contrary to reality. Either way, it is a window into the thinking of the conservative mind.

joe went on to complain about the ending of The Accused, because obviously, Jodie Foster's character didn't learn where her place is in society, otherwise, why the trial?

It really is a movie begging for a film . The Keystone Cops architecture of the right wing paranoids cuuupled with
The unerring aim of their gutter sniping ,
Nipping at the anal retentive neurosis of inflexible infallibility ,
Jack boots roasting the unsuspecting defenceless on an open hatred fire .

The warm feeling of hatred which like a cleansing angel replaces the need to know with the urine scented glow of fear
If your curious then "Joe" has some frens who are just about always furious
With you

What I see when I watch Cheney's ongoing heckling campaign of Obama is a bitter old man desperate to defend his legacy and his ego.

What is disgusting is watching the MSM gleefully give him a platform to do so, under the absurd auspice that Cheney's motivation has something to do with concerns about national security. Cheney has demonstrated over and over his willingness to say and do anything in order to manipulate the politics of the moment.

Fuuny, considering how much Conservatives love to bash Hollywood and their product, yet they seem to take so many of their ideas for foreign policy from movies and TV, not to mention running candidates wh were former actors!

As a resident of America's heartland, I have to remind our children to always take proper precautions during tornadoes, lest they find themselves stranded in Munchkinland.

I'm glad he brought up the movie because there is no better representation of such a monster IRL. And most people, like Steve said, would never be sympathetic to Jessup if they watched it.

It'd be great to know someone is out there like Kaffee with the balls to push the motherfucker ("god damn his shit-filled soul to hell") into screaming the truth. Like the movie, I suspect it wouldn't take much. The arrogant shit.

PS: neill: you should check out the fan pages of "not have George Bush as president" and "telling Dick Cheney to shut the hell up" on FB. It's almost as fun as throwing actual shoes.

"Indeed, it worries me a bit that Scarborough would watch "A Few Good Men" and think, "You know, maybe Kaffee really did 'weaken a country' with his efforts."

These are the same kind of people who watch Return of the Jedi and can't understand what those awful rebels have against that righteous decent Emperor Palpatine.

Although it is not inconceivable that you could watch A Few Good Men and reach the same conclusions as Scarborough. I know a lot of my friends did.

But didn't Jessup lose and end up being arrested for, you know, torture/authoring the Code Red?

The final moral lesson of the movie was "We were supposed to fight for the people who couldn't fight for themselves."

(Shakes head)

The idiot thinks Jessup screaming "you can't handle the truth" is the end of the movie. Everything is justified in those 5 words.
Daily, Scarborough tells the audience that his sources tell him that torture worked, the FBI agent testimony is wrong, he knows the real truth.
He gives no names; he simply states that he knows what really happens. He is full of shit, piss, vinegar and lies. He is the personification of the mindset that brought us the Iraq war.

Excellent. Can we now move to the ending where Jessup (Cheney) is arrested and frog-marched to prison?

It's like watching World War Two and thinking Hitler was right.

I've found that a pretty good thumbnail description of a wingnut is "someone who watched A Few Good Men and thought Nicholson was playing the good guy".

What Former Dan said.

Also, the two Marines being charged, while found not guilty of murder, were found guilty of conduct unbecoming, for following orders that led to an illegal act.

It's another moral from the movie that I think gets overlooked.

Nobody ever thought that Joe Scarborough was the sharpest knife in the drawer---in fact, in terms of sharpness, he's more like a spoon.

Although it is not inconceivable that you could watch A Few Good Men and reach the same conclusions as Scarborough. I know a lot of my friends did.

Sure-- Kaffee (the Tom Cruise character) was pretty useless from the beginning, and Jessup's observation that Americans don't want to think about the dirty, violent underside of our military might was generally correct, if overstated. But the point is that Kaffee grows into an adult understanding of both American principles and some of the tradeoffs they can require, while Jessup is stuck in a highly limited dual view-- all honor and pageantry on the outside, and an unprincipled, crude, bullying interior. Once that interior's exposed due to his arrogance, he can no longer function or be of use.

It's complicated, which is why it's a damned good story... too bad the right can't quite grasp anything beyond the critical acclaim and jingoism.

It's like watching "Bob Roberts" and thinking you'd like to vote for the protagonist.

IIRC, Tim Robbins chose not to release a "Bob Roberts" soundtrack because he was concerned that listeners would identify with the protagonist. The first time I saw the film, I thought Robbins was underestimating his audience's ability to recognize who the bad guy was. But the past 8 years have made me rethink the matter.

steve: "Indeed, it worries me a bit that Scarborough would watch A Few Good Men and think, You know, maybe Kaffee really did 'weaken a country' with his efforts.' It's like watching Bob Roberts and thinking you'd like to vote for the protagonist."

... Or watching Jack Nicholson's title character in Danny Devito's biopic Hoffa, and wishing that the real-life son and current Teamsters president was more like dear ol' dad.

The real message of the movie wasn't the shouting showdown of Kaffee and Jessup as to who could or couldn't handle the truth.

It was the consequences that devolve from the truth. Not just Jessup, as villain, being taken away but more importantly Dawson and Downey being dishonorably discharged and a fellow marine dead by their actions.

The message of the movie isn't Jessup - it's Dawson. It's not the showy frog march of Jessup; it's the reluctant recognition by both the military court and Dawson that Jessups don't exist without Dawsons and Downeys.

It's a message no one in the Obama camp or the US Congress seems to have ever managed to "get" either. Rework the movie so that it ends with Judge Randolph saying to Jessup, "well, mistakes were made, but we're going to look forward now and how about let's just give amnesty to everyone involved, 'kay?"

That's the reality vs the mythology here.

There is no bitter pill of individual consequences in the reality, and instead there is a worldwide failure of the myth of America.

And that failure will have ongoing consequences that will rot every institution we ever revered.