As far a W being the latter day Leiningen, I don't think it works. I don't think he's experienced a scintilla of self-doubt and he certainly has never played the role of a latter-day George Washington, who put not only his fortune, but put his life on the line for his country. I don't think you have to put either on the line to demonstrate your patriotism but you do have to put them on the line if you want the legitimate respect due Washington and the fictional Leiningen.
And Cindy Sheehan as an army ant who wants to metaphorical destroy the Bush fortune and tear into his flesh....? No sale. She was one of many grieving mothers of the fallen, who several months ago started to make her views on the war known in a loud way. She originally received very little attention -- the Nation magazine put her face on their March 28th issue, four months before there was an inkling of Camp Cindy. But then the zeitgeist changed. There were the 27 fallen servicemen in the first three days of this month. And the President wasn't offering any reason not to expect 27 casulties in the first three days of next August and the August after that. And he wasn't offering an explanation as to why the present and future sacrifice was needed. How did offering young men to Mars, the God of War protect their families and fellow citizens. Was Iraq truly flypaper for Al Qaida? How so? When will our soldiers come home -- you said this war would be short -- you declared "major combat operations" were completed over two years ago?
Those questions, the changed zeitgeist, an anti-war movement with no spokesman, an opposition party with no leader possessing a spine, and a press corps with no missing white woman nor sex scandal to cover, all congealed around the person of Cindy Sheehan -- the personification of the Reagan Democrat/Irish Catholic if ever there was one. The mother of an altar boy, Eagle Scout, a soldier who re-enlisted -- a mother whose son demonstrated the bravery of Leiningen.
Where did that bravery come from? Did any of that bravery, that courage, come from his mother? The easy thing for Cindy Sheehan to have done, would be proclaiming unflagging support for the President and his policies. She wouldn't be the object of ridicule, she wouldn't be in Crawford, in a ditch, having to deal with the likes of David Duke on one hand and Michelle Malkin on the other. She wouldn't have her personal life splashed on Drudge and cable news. But she believes in the righteousness of her cause every bit as her son did the cause he died for and she shows the same tenacity he apparently demonstrated his whole life. And so she stayed in the ditch until her mother's stroke and shows every sign of returning to the ditch or the White House. The tree lies not far from the apple.
Cindy Sheehan seeks not to tear the flesh from the President, nor destroy his fortune. She seeks answers, explanations, and promises of an exit strategy. That is the request of 60% of the electorate, some of whom, tangentially, may wish to tear the flesh from W's bones and see his financial and political fortunes come to ruin. But the dominant point of overlap, the critical mass, is asking, "When can the soldiers come home?"
And the supposed Leiningen, President Bush's response: "I need to get on with my life", and the cryptic, "When Iraqis stand up, America will stand down." Now, Leiningen did sleep soundly in between rounds with the ants, but he was back at the ants the next morning. He rallied his workers with his calm demeanor, forceful exhortations, and promises of higher wages (rather than privatizing their pensions). But most importantly, he rallied them with his plan, his
vision.
He had a plan for dealing with the ants. And the plan was transparent, detailed, and logical. And there was a fallback plan. And, Leiningen's ingenuity was so obvious, so present, that if those plans were circumnavigated by the ants, the workers knew that he would come up with a third one (which he did). Leiningen never said things were going well when they weren't. He didn't announce to his workers on the evening after the first round, "Mission Accomplished."
This was the first I had read the Leiningen story. It was adapted into a radio play and in 1954 it was made into the Charlton Heston movie
The Naked Jungle which I recall watching (quite terrified of the ants) on a Sunday afternoon as a child. The plot summary:
"Joanna Selby travels deep inside the South American jungle to meet for the first time Carl Leiningen, a man she has married by mail order and the owner of a vast plantation that covers 200,000 acres. But once there she is shocked at the savagery of life among the Indians that work on the plantation. And then Leiningen rejects her when he finds that she has been married before, not wanting to take "another man's pickings." But they are forced together in the face of an army of marabunta ants that enters the estate, devouring everything in their path."
I did a little more Googling and found this surprise -- apparently the former chairman of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee,
Richard Perle, is working on a remake of
The Naked Jungle, tentatively titled
The Naked Jungle II: Leiningen versus Gold Star Mothers & Fat Leftists. The buzz on the internets is that Perle has approached filmmaker Mel Gibson to both produce and direct this movie. Details are still sketchy but one cult site provided me with this plot summary as well as the poster Perle used in the pitch meeting with Gibson:
"Ahmed Chalabi travels deep inside the Washington bureaucracy to meet for the first time, George W. Leiningen, a man he would like to marry but whom the local customs forbid to do so. He convinces Leiningen to invade his homeland to displace the ruling thug. But he is disappointed that he doesn't immediately get to take the thug's place as Leiningen had originally assured him. Heart-broken, he cultivates al-Sadr, the Shia clergyman whose militia the US Army was trying to destroy in an ironic plot twist. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Leiningen is confronted by scores of protesting ants who are in legion with a crazed driver ant named Cindy who has a fat ant friend named Michael. All these ants are unable to do any real harm to Leiningen's person, but he is determined to demonstrate his courage by going to Idaho."