BRIAN DEPALMA HAS SOMETHING IN COMMON WITH MEARSHEIMER AND WALT. (UPDATED) Powerline has a post about DePalma's new movie Redacted:

Redacted tells the horrifying story of the worst crime committed by American soldiers in Iraq: the rape of a 15-year-old girl and the murder of the girl and her family, for which the perpetrators are now serving prison terms up to and exceeding 100 years. The movie is shot in a documentary style, but is fictionalized.

Why is Redacted contemptible if the story is true? Because it suggests that the crime is somehow typical of what American soldiers do in Iraq. Because it shows none of the heroism, or even normality, that generally characterize the troops' efforts there. Because DePalma has admitted--bragged, actually--that his movie is a piece of propaganda intended to turn public opinion in the U.S. against the war.

I don't know anything about the movie nor if DePalma has actually bragged about his movie being intended as propaganda. What caught my eye was the the quote at the end of the post, taken from the approving review by The Telegraph:

In this BBC interview, DePalma says he's "done something that just can't be done. You can't ever say anything critical of the troops." So DePalma is bracing for attacks from the "right wing." [emphasis added]

There seems to be a rise in self-righteousness hypocrisy with people like DePalma, Mearsheimer, Walt, and Carter. who on the one hand whine that they are being prevented from criticizing some sacred cow--while at the same time indignant that what they write or produce is itself criticized.

Here is DePalma in action.

This seems to be developing into an art form.

UPDATE: Victor Davis Hanson writes that DePalma:

proclaims that he alone has courageously done something —trash his country's troops in the field at a time of war—that you just can't do in America ("I have done something that just cannot be done. You can never say anything critical of the troops.").

Say what?

Does he remember U.S. Senators like Dick Durbin who compared them to Nazis and Stalinists, or Ted Kennedy (Baathists), or the other epithets such as "terrorists" used by elected officials, that predated his caboose film by years?

Meanwhile Bryan Preston notes the similarity between Redacted and DePalma's own 1989’s Casualties of War.

Technorati Tag: Brian DePalma and Redacted.