George Bush Is Dead

“FURY AS DUBYA ‘ASSASSINATED’ BY C4,” announces the front page of the Mirror.

And there surely is much upset. Not since Noel Edmonds was offed by the BBC has a British broadcaster cancelled a world figure.

But the pictures do not lie. “BUSH WHACKED,” says the bigger headline. “President Bush staggers after being ‘gunned’ down by an assassin,” runs the caption beneath a shot of a suited President staggering.

This can only be front-page news. And looking on we expect the customary page upon page of speculation based on few facts and many questions. Did the grassy knoll do it? Did Dubya accidentally shoot himself in the foot? What did the President’s minder, seen running towards his man, have for lunch?

“GEORGE BUSH ASSASINATED,” says the Star. “President Dubya done for,” reports the Sun. “Prince of Hearts struck by battered white Fiat Uno,” says the Express.

“I am appalled and shocked,” says Mitchell Reiss, the UN special envoy to Northern Ireland in the Mirror. “It sounds obscene. What on earth is the justification for television like this?”

That’s right. The murder of President Bush is part of a Channel 4 drama. It’s a film about how Bush will be murdered in 2007 after flying to Chicago. Bush will be killed, and his Syrian murderer put on trial.

Pete Dale, head of More4, the Channel 4 cable station which will screen the 90-minute movie, says it is a “thought-provoking critique” of contemporary US society. Lest you think it is cheap sensationalism, Dale tells us it is a “sophisticated piece of work”.

Indeed. It’s not real. It is art. “It’s a film. Just ignore it,” says the Mirror’s TV critic Jim Shelley. “The publicity is exactly what the film-makers want… Nothing will change. No one will die.”

Won’t they? The Mirror’s front page says, “There are even fears it could lead to a real-life assassination. John Beye of TV watchdog MediaWatch says the film “may well out ideas into people’s heads”.

“If something happens as a consequence of this film, the blood will be on their hands,” he continues, referring to the TV executives who have backed the show.

This is, of course, utter bunkum. A deluded American with dreams of fame needs little encouragement to fire a gun at their president. And a Syrian killer might well just get Hezbollah do the job for them and then blame the thing on an Israeli conspiracy.

Or on Tony Blair. The film has him on trial for war crimes…

Posted: 1st, September 2006 | In: Tabloids Comment | TrackBack | Permalink