oooooo, a new movie is made: The Pentagon Papers!

[DagmarK]

I didn't know that there was a movie coming out about this!!!

James Spader is starring in it. That's a good sign. He wouldn't accept a frivolous script.

I wonder when it is slated to come out? Next summer? :-)

We will have Moore's 9/11 Fahrenheit and this movie........ This can only help!

[alaine]

1. James Spader plays a great sociopath.

I hope he's one of the bad guys. This is the first I have heard of this. I'll look for it.

[DagmarK]

2. Oh, it's a made-for-cable movie!

I don't have cable! And I guess it already hit the TV.....right before the invasion!

Spader plays Ellsberg. Oh well. He does play a good sociopath. But I don't think he would be right to play Liddy!

http://entertainment.msn.com/movies/movie.aspx?m=540762

It was certainly no coincidence that the made-for-cable historical film The Pentagon Papers was timed for released just when America was poised to wrestle with the question as to whether or not the President had the right to declare war on Iraq without full congressional and/or United Nations approval.

The film covers several decades in the life of Harvard graduate Daniel Ellsberg (James Spader), who as a Pentagon official during two presidential administrations regards himself as patriotic as the next fellow. According to the unabashedly slanted teleplay by Jason Horwitch, it is this sense of patriotism that compels Ellsberg to release a 7,000-page classified report to The New York Times and The Washington Post, revealing that the official story of America's "success" in Vietnam was both exaggerated and distorted, and that the public has been egregiously misled for years.

As a result of this act, Ellsberg, whose family life has already been destroyed by his devotion to his work, faces charges of treason from the Nixon administration. Ironically, it is Nixon's reaction to Ellsberg's security breach which leads him to create his team of gap-stopping "plumbers" -- who would of course bring about the President's downfall with the Watergate scandal. Surprisingly, The Pentagon Papers premiered March 9, 2003, over the FX network, a cable service owned by the markedly conservative Rupert Murdoch. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide