2016

My wife and I saw 2016 - a movie by the guy who produced Schindler's List and Dinesh D'Souza.   The movie puts together a lot of assertions about President Obama's background as well as what might happen if he is elected to a second term.   Much of the substance of the book comes from two sources - Obama's Dream's From My Father and two of D'Souza's books on Obama.

D'Souza argues that Obama is fundamentally responding to the anti-colonialist inclinations of his father.  And through that lens many of the President's proposals make a lot of sense.

I would not call this movie entertaining, for at least two reasons.  First, many of the allegations are pretty well understood, although as D'Souza asserts many of the most important details of the President's life have been understated - for example his relationships with far left of center professors and his close ties to rhetorical extremists like Bill Ayers and Rev. Jeremiah Wright.  D'Souza makes a credible case that many of the traditional media skated away from providing coverage of some of the President's associates.  At the same time D'Souza uses an annoying device in a couple of instances by filming him talking to someone on a cellular phone - and then showing both sides of the conversation.  I thought that was bush league.

But there are some quite interesting parts.   First is the interview with George Obama, the President's half brother in Keyna.  He seems well spoken.    Second, is the segment with David Walker, who is the former Comptroller General.  Walker is a deficit hawk. (Had his own movie on the deficit which never seemed to have taken off.)   Walker points out the risks of the speed at which we have accumulated debt in the last 8-10 years.   At some point, he correctly points out, the problems become harder and harder to solve.

What was also interesting was the crowd.  For a 3PM showing the place was full of people.  What's more the next show looked like it was also sold out.   As people were leaving the theater the atmosphere was not unlike a campaign stop.  The crowd whooped it up.

From a marketing perspective this might be a good thing to get to video quickly.  In our area two theaters are showing the movie.   Distribution would increase if you could download it.