My review of "W"

Last night Curtis and I walked down to the Farmers' Market/Grove for dinner and a movie. Unfortunately HSM III wasn't playing there so we had to see "W". Let me first say that I think the movie would have been a lot more interesting if I hadn't heard so much about it. It was funny at times, but a little slow, especially since it went through the events leading up to the war in Iraq and well...I was around for that so I know what happened.

I guess my question is - how much of it is true? We know that the President was an alcoholic who took awhile to get his life together and it was discovery of Jesus that really helped him focus. We know about his grades at Yale and his lack of motivation as a young adult. We know what V.P. Cheney and Colin Powell's opinions were about the war. But what about his relationship with his father? Was it all in W's head that his father favored Jeb or did his father really think that Jeb would eventually become president while Junior would only get so far as owner of the Texas Rangers? How did his mother really feel? Was there a conversation on election night 1992 where W attributed his father's defeat to Pres. Clinton to his failure to go into Baghdad during the first Gulf War? Is that why W went further when he was president?

I realize that we don't know everything, but it felt like the assumptions that were made could have been expanded on. I also felt like Oliver Stone spent more time on the lead-up to the war than he needed to. We know that there was an internal debate and we know that the intelligence re WMDs was sketchy. I wanted to see more about his campaigns, both for Governor and for President, and understand better why he felt so connected to regular Americans (several times in the movie they told him he had "the touch", but we never really understood why).

Nevertheless, "W" reminded me that our president is a fascinating character study, who overcame serious emotional challenges to become one of the most significant presidents on record, for better or for worse.