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Fox NewsLast night’s special screening of new movie “Frost/Nixon” in Washington, D.C. was an early holiday gift to Beltway liberals, delivering glad tidings of anti-Nixonian feelgood vibes to the permanent Washington establishment, which has felt shut out of power for so long, during the dark night of Gingrich-DeLay-Bush these past 15 years, before the Obama dawn.
After the film’s screening, at the National Geographic Society headquarters in downtown Washington, director Ron Howard, playwright/screenwriter Peter Morgan, and Nixon-hater James Reston Jr. (son of the legendary New York Times columnist) appeared onstage for a question-and-answer session with the audience. The discussion was moderated by Robert Dallek, the retired Boston University professor and well-known historian.
Then Reston went further, declaring that the film was “a metaphor for George W. Bush,” a theme that Howard and Dallek, at least, seemed comfortable with. That was fine for the liberal multitudes in the audience, including former CBS News reporter Daniel Schorr, now over ninety, who proudly recollected for the audience that he was “number fourteen on Nixon’s enemies list,” and former Watergate Committee counsel Richard Ben-Veniste, who resurfaced in 2004 as one of the 9/11 Commissioners.
But then “FOX News Sunday” host Chris Wallace, braving the liberal wind, asked a question, which was actually more of an accusation. “To compare George W. Bush to Richard Nixon is to trivialize Nixon’s crimes and is a disservice to Bush,” Wallace said. Recalling that 3,000 people were killed on 9/11, and noting that there hadn’t been any attacks on U.S. soil since, Wallace suggested that something had been done right. That’s why, he said, “we are all sitting here tonight so comfortably”—and not afraid of another terrorist attack. Moreover, Wallace said, “Richard Nixon’s crimes were committed solely for his own political gain, whereas George W. Bush was trying to protect the American people.” To suggest otherwise, Wallace insisted, “was a grave misrepresentation of history, then and now.” And, amazingly, Wallace received a smattering of applause.
Read more:
http://foxforum.blogs.foxnews.com/2008/12/02/jpinkerton_chris_wallace/
Frank Langella portrays Richard Nixon, left, and Michael Sheen portrays David Frost in an image released by Universal Pictures