Why the Pittsburgh Post Gazette is an embarrassment at best

“Death of a President” is a film that opens today at a couple of theaters in Pittsburgh. It won’t play at our local Cinemark or many other theaters whose corporate owners refuse to run it. What makes “DOAP” controversial and why some theater chains have decided not to show it is that it is “a sober fakeumentary from Britain’s Channel 4 that imagines the assassination of the current President Bush in Chicago on October 19, 2007.” (Time Magazine).

The film imagines what might happen in the aftermath of such a tragedy and shows an over-reactive government and populace “rushing to judgment” as the first person suspected of being the lone assassin is a Syrian man with rumored al-Qaeda sympathies. Suspicions prove wrong, but the damage is done.

The Los Angeles Times calls the film “thoughtful, but not otherwise particularly earth-shattering…It warns of the pernicious effects of a rush to judgment and thoughtless reaction, especially during times of high anxiety.”

The New York Times says it is an “opportunistic little picture…(that) is, in the end, neither terribly outrageous nor especially heroic.”

Of course, for many the very premise of the film is offensive. I have no plans to see it, but certainly would defend the right of the film maker to make it and of those who want to see it to see it. As in the case of many controversial films, The Da Vinci Code being the most recent example, it may be best for those who are offended to keep quiet and let the film be crushed under the weight of its own mediocrity. DOAP has all the signs of being a mediocre film.

Enter the Pittsburgh Post Gazette and its movie critic, Barbara Vancheri. Ms Vancheri begins her review in this morning’s paper, “It’s a fair question to ask: How would I (or other critics) feel about Death of a President if the assassin’s bullets hit Bill Clinton or Al Gore or a politician who would be president such as John McCain or Barack Obama? Or an unknown actor playing the leader of the free world?” Ms Vancheri later quotes an acquaintance whose says, “I think there are a lot of people who are so angry at Bush this is almost a fantasy film for them or a feel-good film,” though he later acknowledges that “the film doesn’t make you feel that way.” Click here for the full review

Ms Vancheri, the question may be one in which you have indulged yourself, and you at least imply that you would not feel as positively about a movie depicting the assassination of a president or would be president more to your liking. But the question is not a fair question. Surely it is a question that came to your mind, but it is not fair. It is not fair in any sense of the word. It is not “pleasing.” It is not “legitimately sought, pursued or done,” nor is it even “tolerably good.” (Definitions from Random House Unabridged Dictionary at dictionary.com)

There is no question but that both the current president and his immediate predecessor have been polarizing personalities in our national life. Both have garnered uncritical supporters and unyielding detractors. Both may represent aspects of the ongoing cultural wars that have so diminished civility and honest conversation about things political and cultural – and important to us all.

At various times and around various issues, I may have been and maybe am a partisan in the difficult debates that mark our time. But never have I wished the death of one who may represent views other than my own. Twice Bill Clinton and twice George Bush have been elected to the office of president. Both have made decisions with which I personally disagree and which I think have been harmful to our country. Both have personality traits that can be irritating. Neither deserves death and the mind that would fantasize or even for a moment feel good about the possibility of their deaths is undeserving of the public pen.

It is a fair question for civil discourse to ask more and better of Ms Vancheri and her editors at the Post Gazette who approved her review.

I know nothing of Ms Vancheri’s faith commitments or lack thereof. Those of us who submit to the authority of scripture, the teaching of Jesus and the Confessions of the Reformed faith, however, know that we are called to a discipline of thought and mind that forbids us from dwelling on base thoughts. Even a fanciful desire for the death of another, and in particular the president, is unworthy of the Christian.

The standard is high. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, “I say to you that every one who is angry with his brother shall be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother shall be liable to the council, and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ shall be liable to the hell of fire.” (Matthew 5:22)

Jesus advised those who would follow him to “render to Caesar the things which are Caesar’s,” (Mark 12:17) which we understand to include a certain honor of “person and place.” The Apostle Paul wrote that honor was due the governing authorities (Romans 13:1-7) and Peter that submission was due the emperor (1 Peter 2:13-17). These are not easy passages and such as Dietrich Bonhoeffer have struggled mightily with their meaning in the face of tyranny.

The Larger Catechism instructs us on the broad meaning of the Fifth Commandment. It reminds us that those in authority are due “all due reverence in heart, word, and behavior; prayer and thanksgiving for them; imitation of their virtues and graces; willing obedience to their lawful commands and counsels, due submission to their corrections; fidelity to, defense and maintenance of their persons and authority, according to their several ranks, and the nature of their places; bearing with their infirmities, and covering them in love, that so they may be an honor to them and to their government.”

Better to “bear with their infirmities and cover them in love” than to feel good about even a fictitious account of their death.

Christians know that obedience to governing authorities is not absolute. When charged not to declare the gospel of Christ, Peter replied to the ruling council, “We must obey God rather than men.” The relationship of the governed to their rulers is sometimes tense, sometimes paradoxical, sometimes trying.

It’s only a movie review in the fluff section of the paper, but Barbara Vancher’s is far from fair. It is unpleasant, illegitimate and intolerable. We need better.

How you and I guard our hearts and minds against that which is evil or ugly?