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Oliver Stone Takes On George W. BushSlate's advance look at Bush, the movie.

By Juliet Lapidos
Posted Monday, April 7, 2008, at 5:12 PM ET

(Continued from page 1)

Pages 74-75: When British Prime Minister Tony Blair says he's concerned about "sectarian violence in the aftermath" of an Iraq invasion, W. tries to reassure him: "They'll be grateful for freedom, the last thing they'll want's 'nother war. Sunnis, Shias, Kurds, you know, in the end they'll stick together, they're all Muslims, anyway, (chuckling) and they gotta pray five times a day."

Page 3: Cheney suggests that Iraq may just be the beginning. "Anyone can go to Baghdad. Real men go to Tehran," says the VP. Pleased with this witticism, W. clinks his bottle of nonalcoholic beer against the VP's coffee mug.

Page 20: Now for that near-death experience. While watching the 2002 Miami Dolphins-Baltimore Ravens playoff game at the White House, W. gets a pretzel stuck in his throat. He "pounds his chest with his fist" then "faints, falling to the floor, hitting his head." Only then does the pretzel dislodge. W. "takes a long, deep breath, feeling lucky to have survived."

Deep Thoughts

Page 65: Stone's script perpetuates the myth that the Rev. Billy Graham converted W. at Kennebunkport in 1985. W. and Graham are walking along a "rocky shoreline" as waves crash "against a rocky promontory" when W. confides, "There's a darkness that follows me … And no matter how many times I go to church and pray; no matter how hard I try to reach out to the Lord, that darkness still has me hooked." He also complains: "People say I was born with a silver spoon, but they don't know … the burden that carries."

Page 71: W. isn't too happy when his father wins the presidency: "I'll never get out of Poppy's shadow," he tells Laura. "They'll all keep sayin' what's the boy ever done … I mean who ever remembers the son of a President?" Laura's rejoinder is heavy with dramatic irony: "You forgot John Quincy Adams."

W. Tells Daddy To Go Negative

Page 68: In the fall of 1988, the National Security Political Action Committee began running the infamous Willie Horton attack ad, which helped Bush Sr. defeat Michael Dukakis. Per the Stone script, NSPAC coordinated with the Bush campaign before airing the ad—a clear violation of campaign finance laws. The script also suggests that Karl Rove worked on the '88 race (which he didn't) and that W. convinced his father to approve negative campaign tactics.

Bush Jr.: Karl [Rove] and Lee [Atwater] predict that by the time the election is over, this guy Horton, will be a household name.

Bush Sr.: Well, uh, just remind Lee that we can't run this directly through the campaign. Find another pipeline.

Bush Jr.: Don't worry. It's being funded through an independent group—The National Security Political Action Committee. Ya know, Roger Ailes' people.

Bush Sr.: Good work, son. You're earning your spurs.

A Cameo for Slate's John Dickerson!

Page 120: Back in 2004, when Slate's John Dickerson was still with Time magazine, he asked W. to answer a simple question: "After 9/11, what would your biggest mistake be, would you say, and what lessons have you learned from it?" In the script, a Time reporter named John Dickerson asks this very question and, just as in real life, W. fumbles his response: "I wish you would have given me this written question ahead of time, so I could plan for it."

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Juliet Lapidos is a Slate assistant editor.
Photograph of Oliver Stone by Stephen Shugerman/Getty Images.
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