Janine Turner watched Game Change (so you don’t have to):
In the movie, the vehemence that spews from Woody Harrelson’s mouth toward Palin represents both his own personal detestation and the reality of the hatred inspired by the man he portrayed, Steve Schmidt. Is Schmidt’s a passion to protect the country or a passion fueled by ego and vendetta?
Meg Stapleton, senior campaign advisor and spokesperson for McCain-Palin, said in the Hollywood Reporter, “Schmidt is infamous for lining up and destroying. He is abusive. He is abrasive. And he is nothing short of a world-class bully.”
One runs into too many of those in politics. But most of those bullies don’t stab their own candidates in the back. Schmidt is obviously both bully and backstabber, and any Republican now would be a fool to hire him.
The left’s other protagonist in Game Change, Nicole Wallace, makes a shocking confession.
Most haunting of all is the sobbing confession by Sarah Paulson, portraying Nicolle Wallace, revealing that Wallace just couldn’t bring herself to vote for McCain – because of Palin. This was the lowest blow. Could this be true?
Why anyone might find Joe Biden a more reassuring figure than Sarah Palin says more about them than it says about Palin. Biden has been wrong on nearly every major issue, on foreign and domestic policy, across several decades. He is a plagiarist and a fabulist, and arrogant well beyond the range of his accomplishments. He makes Barack Obama look somewhat competent. In her short political career, Sarah Palin accomplished more good than Biden has. Anyone who prefers Biden to her is either blinded by their politics, biased toward east coast accents or something like that, or simply ill-informed. Nicole Wallace has no excuse whatsoever. Any Republican would be a fool to hire her, too, if for no other reason than that she was the person behind the ill-fated Palin interview with Katie Couric. That decision constitutes gross media advance malpractice.
Read the rest. Janine finds something good in the mess that is Game Change.
I’ve often wondered if campaign directors hired by Republican were really Democrats in disguise. The book and this movie answers my questions. This may explain the stupidity of the McCain campaign – McCain stupidly hired people who didn’t support his positions or policies or even the position/policies of true small-government conservatives. Some of them displayed their true colors in this movie (backstabbers, traitors, and worse).
“He makes Barack Obama look somewhat competent.”
Ouch!
Palin seems a wonderfully warm, human, smart, politically savvy, and yes even attractive woman, who turned out to be totally unread and unprepared for the national stage and most national and international issues, in spite of having a college degree and having been governor of one of our 57 states. It’s a big oops. A couple of better press appearances, and McCain/Palin might well have won. Four years later, Palin could at least do well enough, but it seems unlikely she will have another chance like that. Another four years, or eight? Top of the ticket? Can’t say that, yet.
As for the movie, the betrayal(s), the review – I’ll wait for Palin’s review of the whole thing, it’s all too Rashomon for me. In fact, I’d rather like to to hear not Palin’s review of the movie, but Palin 2012′s review of Palin 2008.
Unread and unprepared? Believe someone who was there:
Randy Scheunemann (who is portrayed in “Game Change,” but in a way he doesn’t recognize as truth):
“As many of you know in 2007-2008, I was Director of Foreign Policy and National Security for the McCain and then McCain/Palin campaign. I had several periods of intense interaction with the governor both in terms of two or three days at the convention, briefing her on John McCain’s foreign policy views and also in playing a role in debate preparation particularly in Sedona, Arizona in the four or five days before the debate where I played the role of Senator Joe Biden.
“What we have here, and like Jason, I spoke to Danny Strong—I actually spoke to Mark Halperin over a couple of different periods, was very disappointed when I read the book, was reluctant to talk to Danny Strong figuring that if he was going to do a movie based on that book, it was likely to be as misleading. Now, like Jason, I’ve not been able to review the screenplay or see the movie, but based on media accounts I’ve come to a couple of preliminary conclusions.
“If the book was very misleading, the movie is going to be far worse. This is not creative license. This is not dramatic effect. Frankly, it gives fiction a bad name to call this movie fiction. It is deliberately misleading. It is based on intentionally misleading lies and mischaracterizations. Maybe that’s going to boost HBO’s rating, but it reflects the view of two or three discredited staffers who were in over their head in an unprecedented fashion engaged in character assassination of the vice presidential nominee picked by the presidential nominee that they purported to serve.
“[It's]fascinating to me that there are scenes in the movie from the briefing, the other individual was Steve Biegun, who actually traveled with her as foreign policy advisor, and myself. Let me first make clear what these briefings were all about.
“These briefings were not to explain the history of the world to Governor Palin. What happens when you have a vice presidential nominee is you have to have a melding of positions between the presidential nominee/the vice presidential nominee. There are often some awkward times. I mean let’s remember all the way back to 1980 when George H.W. Bush called Reaganomics voodoo economics.
“We had nothing awkward like that overt criticism. Governor Palin was completely conversant on a whole range of issues. The purpose of my briefing wasn’t to say which side Germany was on in WWI or who the axis followers were in WWII.”
Josh, Obama is unprepared NOW, after 3 years in office. There’s no comparison. And, let’s not forget, Palin was running as VP – but Obama accurately discerned that she would be the greater threat.
That was the last thing he got right.
– invest the pieces of silver wisely so as not to end up a greeter and door-opener in Vegas.