From the Wall Street Journal: "What Bush and Batman Have In Common" WTF?

A cry for help goes out from a city beleaguered by violence and fear: A beam of light flashed into the night sky, the dark symbol of a bat projected onto the surface of the racing clouds . . .

Oh, wait a minute. That's not a bat, actually. In fact, when you trace the outline with your finger, it looks kind of like . . . a "W."

Thus begins the opinion article in the Wall Street Journal, by Andrew Klavan.

I think I summed up the horrible misrepresentations in this article quite nicely with my response to it on the WSJ website:

My first reaction of the comparison of Bush's administration to the fictional characters of The Dark Knight and 300 was an outright insinuation that the American public is too stupid to understand politics unless they're equated to fictional characters. That, in and of itself, is rather insulting.

That aside, however, if Mr. Klavan wants to take that route, I'll play along. The most glaring error in the comparison is the justification for the actions of the main characters of the films. In The Dark Knight, Batman is after the Joker because he is the man that murdered his parents in cold blood. He is acting on emotion, not logic. Even still, his actions are justified, because it is a known fact that the Joker is responsible for the murders. Bush attacked Iraq because... refresh my memory... they had WMDs. Later, the tale of Iraqi WMDs was proven to be unequivocally false, and is part of the reason that impeachment hearings are being pursued against Bush. Batman was just in his response - he never lies to justify himself. Bush is just a liar, trying to finish his fathers war through lies, treachery and deceit of the American people.

In 300, the soldiers from Sparta were defending themselves against a major attack on their country - one potentially devastating enough to threaten their sovereignty. No such event has happened in the US since Pearl Harbor. As horrific as 9/11 was, it was an event that could have been prevented, and never has or will threaten the sovereignty of the United States. Once again, in the fictional story, the act is just. As a brief final note on 300, it was a select group protecting their own city-state against attack, not one nation attacking another without just cause.

Your arguments in this article are highly flawed, and only serve to demonstrate the same misconceptions and irrationalities that have forced this country into an era of fear-mongering, racism, and hatred.

If you really want a good work of fiction to demonstrate what the Bush administration has done for this country, might I recommend Orwell's 1984? The Bush Administration is far closer to INGSOC than they are to Batman.