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George Bush is only president because the vote in Florida was rigged, explains movie director Spike Lee.
And now the president is going after Saddam Hussein “to draw attention away from the fact that they still haven’t apprehended [Osama] bin Laden. The man, supposedly, has vanished into thin air, so now they have egg on their face and have to get the next bogey man.”
Lee, the director of such memorable films as “Do the Right Thing” and “Malcolm X,” adds: “The German and French governments should be commended.”
Just another wacky Hollywood big mouth with too much money and too little sense? Maybe. But there’s an interesting twist with Spike Lee – because, just three years ago, following another U.S. military campaign, he was hired for several million dollars by President Clinton’s Defense Department to make a series of six Navy recruiting commercials.
What a difference a war makes.
Lee expressed a little irritation when asked by one brave European reporter if he has any regrets about taking Uncle Sam’s multimillion-dollar gig given his recent pronouncements.
“You have to realize that the reason I was chosen to do that is because, historically, the United States Navy has not done enough to recruit minorities,” he explains.
Yeah, so … What about the money? What about the principle? Do you actually believe in the work you do? Or are you just an artist for hire? No problem with doing propaganda for the U.S. military one day and trashing it the next?
“I don’t see any contradiction in myself [sic] doing a campaign trying to get minorities to join the United States Navy, and at the same time saying that the war in Iraq is wrong,” he says. “Every nation has a right to self-defense. But there’s a difference between self-defense and being aggressive.”
Not to put too fine a point on it, but Spike Lee’s work for the Navy followed closely a 75-day bombing campaign in Serbia that few could argue had any connection, even remotely, with defending the United States of America. No Serb had ever attacked America. No Serb had ever threatened to attack America. No Serb had the ability to attack America. No Serb even had the desire to attack America.
The U.S. led the NATO attack, including major bombardment of Serb- populated areas, ostensibly to take sides in a long-standing ethnic and religious regional conflict that some feared could spread through Europe, but no one projected any threat to the United States. Indeed, it was the Clinton administration’s concern that the war in the Balkans had not stimulated enlistments and that triggered the call to Lee – and some other half-baked recruitment schemes.
But that was another administration, wasn’t it? That war, then, was a just war. That military was a good military. And, most importantly, it would seem to me, Spike Lee was getting a $2.5 million government paycheck from the U.S. Treasury back then.
For me, this episode raises the question of why an artist with the moral character and resume of Spike Lee would even be considered for the honor of promoting the U.S. military. Does he represent the ethos of service to the country? Has he ever put his life on the line for something bigger than his diminutive frame? Is Spike Lee a name that comes to mind when you think “self-sacrifice, honor, duty, courage”?
I think not.
At the time, Lee seemed very thankful for the work: “I’m very grateful to be given the shot because there are some backward people in the world who have a very narrow vision of who I am, of what I’m about, and what I can do.”
Count me proudly among the backward and among those with the narrow vision. Spike Lee is a hypocrite. He is a phony. He is a sellout. And he’s a disgrace to his country.
I’d like to give him a one-way ticket to France or Germany.
