http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=0A4934FE-49E4-47F0-B5FB-A3EF878E6A07 Critics on Obama, 'Zero Dark Thirty'
By: Patrick Gavin
December 11, 2012 09:19 AM EST
Although the new movie, “Zero Dark Thirty,” isn’t official endorsed by the White House, it’s almost impossible for anyone whose seen the film to separate the dramatization of bin Laden’s death from the world of politics.
“The movie of the year is also the political conundrum of the year, a far, far cry from the rousing piece of pro-Obama propaganda that some conservatives feared it would be,” wrote New York Times columnist Frank Bruni, noting the silver lining the film puts on the efficacy of waterboarding.
As CNN’s Peter Bergen notes, the president himself makes only one cameo.
“The one time the president does appear in ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ is in a clip from a ‘60 Minutes’ interview in which he criticizes the use of ‘torture.’ By this point in the film, the audience has already seen that the CIA has employed coercive interrogation techniques on an al Qaeda detainee that produced a key lead in the hunt for bin Laden. In the film, Obama’s opposition to torture comes off as wrongheaded and prissy.”
Joe Scarborough discussed Obama’s position on torture as it relates to the film on Monday’s “Morning Joe,” saying the film “presents a narrative that is going to make a lot of people in the mainstream media, in the Democratic party and in the administration uncomfortable, and that is the truth that Barack Obama learned, the first briefing that he got after after he won the election, and that is that the CIA program, whether you find it repugnant or not, actually was effective with KSM and other people getting actionable intelligence that led to couriers, that led, eventually, years later, to the killing of Osama bin Laden.”
The film came under scrutiny in the early stages of its development when it was revealed that the primary filmmakers, Mark Boal and Kathryn Bigelow, were given special briefings on the topic from the CIA.
“So will the film impact the public’s perception of bin Laden’s death?” writes Breitbart.com’s Christian Toto. “After all, the media gave credit to President Barack Obama for capturing the terrorist leader even though Obama spoke out specifically against enhanced interrogation. … In theory, bin Laden would still be alive and plotting more attacks had Obama’s “no torture” policy been in place.”
The Daily Beast’s Marlow Stern says the film does open Obama up to some criticism but not in the way most believe. Discussing a scene involving the film’s primary protagonist, Maya, a CIA analyst, Stern writes:
”Despite locating the compound in August 2010 and Maya being ‘100 percent convinced’ that bin Laden is inside, the agency takes forever to act. Maya demands that a bomb be dropped on the compound—despite knowledge that children are inside. Washington, however, wants more surveillance footage of the area, believing the mystery man holed up inside could be a Saudi drug dealer. ‘The president is a thoughtful, analytical guy,’ the president’s adviser says. And it’s here—not the torture scenes—where people could criticize the Obama administration for failing to act sooner. Despite loads of circumstantial evidence that the mystery man inside the compound is none other than bin Laden, it takes the Obama administration nine months to take any sort of action. Maya, meanwhile, is ripping her hair out and, as each day passes, angrily scribbles the number of days its been since they discovered the compound on the glass window of her CIA superior.”
