My wife and I saw The Report last night on Amazon Prime. Even more so than its superb star-studded cast - Adam Driver, Annette Bening, Jon Hamm, Michael C. Hall, Maura Tierney, Ted Levine, you get the picture - the story of how our government, before Trump, lied and otherwise did its utmost to keep the public from knowing that we tortured prisoners via water-bordering after September 11, makes The Report an absolute necessity for anyone who cares about democracy and human decency to see.
I say the government, but Senator Diane Feinstein, brilliantly portrayed by Bening, sticks with Daniel Jones (powerfully played by Driver) and is ultimately instrumental in seeing his report published. Not so much just about everyone else, other than a few of Feinstein's colleagues on her Senate committee.
That George W. Bush would have wanted to keep this secret is not surprising - the torture took place on his watch. But Obama was in no hurry to make it publicly known, either. And since the government was regularly denying that it ever took place, including when Obama was in office, well, he doesn't come across the greatest in this narrative, either.
But the most disconcerting was CIA Director John Brennan (2013-2017, i.e,, under Obama) perfectly played by Ted Levine, whom I first noticed as a good guy in Monk. Here, in The Report, Levine plays pretty much the complete antithesis of a good guy. I've seen Brennan many times on MSNBC. He's understandably a favorite critic of Trump to have on the air, seeing as how Trump took away his security clearance after Brennan dared to criticize Trump. But the way he behaved in regard to Jones, coming this close to getting him thrown in prison for years for daring to uncover the truth, well, I'll never look at Brennan the same again.
The point here is the degradations of democracy and humane conduct on which we pride ourselves here in the United States were bipartisan, with many Democrats, at least in the Administration, more than willing to do whatever it took to cover up what the Bush Administration had done and denied doing. All in the name of national security.
To be clear, I'm a New Yorker, and was terribly traumatized by what happened on September 11. Although I wasn't in favor of torturing prisoners, I might have at least understood it though not supported it, if it had really worked. But as The Report makes clear, it did not. And the attempt to keep it from the public, to lie about its effectiveness, represents a low day for all Americans.
The only heroes here are Driver, Feinstein, and The New York Times for going public at a crucial time with what it knew of the story, which kept Jones from being ruined. And now, this crucial movie is heroic for being made (written and directed) by Scott Z. Burns and shown on Amazon right now. Kudos to all, and, once again, our First Amendment.
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