Eugene Jarecki's Devestating First-Hand Account Of McCain & Salter
Jarecki tells the story of how he ended up in the middle of McCain’s shift from anti-Bush to Bush-friendly… it’s not pretty.
Here is the clip from the film -
And here is a key passage, though it is all worth reading. Mark Salter is McCain’s right hand, then as now:
“Salter… declared to me that I was “making it look like John McCain was critical of the Vice-President,” and that “Vice-President Cheney has nothing to do with Halliburton,” I realized that what he was objecting to was not that McCain might appeared too close to Cheney but rather not close enough. Mr. Salter demanded that I send him a transcript of the Senator’s interview, not just the parts that appear in the film. Since none of the film’s more than twenty other interviewees had been provided such a thing, and since I valued the film’s independence from political pressure, I told Mr. Salter I would seek advice from other journalists and get back to him.
Salter next resorted to threats, saying that, unless I complied, he would smear my name in the media and exert pressure on the film’s principal funder never to work with me again. I said I thought the BBC would be unlikely to welcome such pressure from an irate chief of staff to a senator. Salter then changed gears, appealing to my sense of fairness. “When Senator McCain sat down to talk to you,” he explained, “he thought he was talking to a television crew from the BBC.”
Read the whole story here.
Checking The Hot Blog this morning, I had to scroll down to the ninth post to find one that had anything to do with MOVIES, and then only tangentially. Damn, David. Seriously, what the hell.
See you after the election. Maybe. The Hot Blog’s gone cold.
Sorry to stress your scrolling finger, Sam… pretty sure that Frost/Nixon and Milk are not tangential, albeit posts almost 35 hours old.
If you don’t come back, we’ll miss ya. But some things are actually more important than Saw V and Zack and Miri Make a Porno.
That was snide.
Did you follow the link, Sam?
This post actually has A LOT to do with movies.
No; it’s fucking honest. This is for keeps. If you are going to come with some nonsense. Be prepared for people to question it.
It was a little snide, J-Mc… but it is why I have shanghaied my own blog in recent weeks.
Movies of value have been covered. Movie news of significance has been covered. But once I chose to allow myself the indulgence of politics in here, the priority has been the priority, as I see it.
And soon, it will change. And happily so.
But as I have always said to people who are unhappy about my choices of content focus… scroll, leave, do what you must. If I am worrying about pleasing everyone, then I won’t be very interesting, running nothing but trailers and so-what opinions about so-what stories.
The movie business is in a rough place. The more intersting movies have kept their powder dry, waiting for the election to be over (just as they avoid big movies that will suck up all the air). And so it goes…
DP, that was just about the most pleasing interaction I’ve had with you in months, thanks.