Image copyright © by Marcus Trahan

The Post

(2017)

Here is a very sad one to watch. It concerns the theft by Daniel Ellsberg and publication by the New York Times of what came to be known as the Pentagon Papers. This was a massive study of the Vietnam War, commissioned by the Department of Defense and labeled Top Secret, because it revealed that Robert McNamara and others knew the war was unwinnable and continued to lie and lie and lie about it for years, all the while sending more American boys to be killed, all for nothing. Pardon me if I get really, really, really pissed about this, because I was one of those boys that LBJ and Nixon were perfectly willing to sacrifice just so they would not have to suffer the “humiliation” of presiding over an American defeat. Well excuse the fucking hell out of me, you motherfuckers, I elected to stay alive, and I’ve never regretted it. What I do regret is the thousands of lives cut short, the men crippled, the colossal waste of it all, because of your treasonous dereliction of duty. If I could I would dig both of you up and kill you again.

Another sad element is watching Katherine Graham (Meryl Streep) and Ben Bradlee (Tom Hanks) fighting the good fight at the Washington Post for freedom of the press, when some asshole federal judge issued a restraining order forbidding the further publication, a constitutional crisis only resolved when the Supreme Court, 6-3, sided with the Post. It was a very big deal at the time … and the sad thing is, with the moral moron in the White House we get a constitutional crisis like this at least once a week.

Does anyone of this generation even remember this story? I sort of doubt it. I’m glad Steven Spielberg made it, but what’s the damn point, really? It all seems like so much small potatoes with a president who blows lies right out his ass every morning along with the shit during his morning crap, a man who has convinced about 40% of Americans that everything coming from the Times, the Post, NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC and every other news organization not willing to suck his tiny dick is publishing FAKE NEWS!!!!!!!!!

Oh, it all seems so fucking hopeless some days. Like today.

I did have one big complaint, and I really can’t understand it. At one point they show a demonstration, and people are chanting “One, two, three, four, we don’t want your stinking war!” What the fuck? My friends, I was there, I was chanting, and I never heard one person refer to a “stinking” war. It was always the fucking war. Always!!! What the hell were they thinking, censoring that? Trying for a PG rating? Too late, assholes, you already got a PG-13. I am at a loss to understand this.