Last night my wife and I watched a satire from 1967 called the "President's Analyst". Its eery on two levels. First it foreshadows Nixon's abuses of power (there's even throwaway line about a plumber) and the findings of the Church Commission. Second, it seems like it was predicting today's headlines of Gonzales halfway telling us that the President's been engaging in purely domestic spying and the Electronic Frontier Foundation's suit of ATT for complicity with the lawbreaking. I just have to let people know about it in the hopes that someone can pull a very short clip from the DVD and play it for the world
Last night my wife and I watched a satire from 1967 called the "President's Analyst". Its hilarious, but also eery on two levels. First it foreshadows Nixon's abuses of power (there's even throwaway line about a plumber) and the findings of the Church Commission. Second, it seems like it was predicting today's headlines of Gonzales halfway telling us that the President's been engaging in purely domestic spying and the Electronic Frontier Foundation's suit of ATT for complicity with the lawbreaking. I just have to let people know about it in the hopes that someone can pull the audio from the DVD and play it for the world
The premise is that the President of the US needs someone to dump all of this problems on - someone who doesn't want anything from him. The problem is that the analyst, played by a grinning James Coburn, himself is now not allowed to talk anyone about this - including his own analyst. Needless to say, this leaves the President's analyst in a very very nerve wracking position. After a bout of paranoia he runs away. A good third of the movie is about the hijinks that ensue.
The movie's best minute comes at the end of chapter 16. While what I recount doesn't really give much away, I recommend that you not read further if you don't want the movie spoiled for you.
Setting the Scene:
A wayward KGB agent has just recovered the president’s psychoanalyst, who went missing and was being pursued by the secret services of every imaginable country in order to capture and extract the President’s deepest secrets from him and the FBR (FBI), which wanted to kill him. They are driving through the middle of nowhere, returning to Washington DC, when the analyst decides to place a call to DC.
The analyst is stuck on hold and they’re out of change; the KGB guy drives to a nearby town to get some more coins. When he returns with the CEA (CIA) guy close behind they find the analyst gone and a brand new phone booth where the old one used to be. This conversation follows…
CIA Who knew he was here?
KGB Only you and me. And you only knew because I called you from town.
Your phone’s not tapped
CIA But this phone booth was
KGB Are you telling me that every phone in the country is tapped?
CIA That’s what’s in my head
KGB (Indignant) This is America! Not Russia
CIA (Coolly shrugging) What do you want from me?