Yesterday, I watched the Kevin Spacey vehicle "Casino Jack," which fictionalized the Jack Abramhoff scandal. It was a good movie, with excellent acting in it - but I was troubled how sympathetic a character Spacey turned Abramhoff into. Here was a guy who bought and sold congress, championed sweat shop slave masters and fucked over anyone who got in his path.. Spacey made him completely human, and the lens showed Abramhoff's half-honest vision of himself, rather than the ugly, obejective truth.
Today I watched "Casino Jack And the United States Of Money," a documentary (save for an opening "America's Most Wanted" re-enactment or two) about the same subject. Goddamn, does it raise more questions than answers. While the hollywood version paints Washington as a whorehouse - The documentary's mosaic depicts a red light district. The Hollywood version props up McCain leading the Senate committee that tarred and feathered him as Abramhoff's comeuppance for helping sink his 2000 campaign. The Doc shows McCain cutting a deal with his fellow republicans for not destroying them in exchange for the GOP 2008 nomination. How in the HELL this escaped our dormant press is mind-boggling to me. The campaign contributions were there in black in white. Many of the same senators grilling Jack A. had taken tens of thousands of bucks from him, his clients, and his allies.
It might be the most cynical thing about the whole 2008 election. Even more than lifting Palin into the national spotlight for a brief bump in the polls. But the press stays mum when it matters, and it comes into the light 3 years later in a documentary analog to a small hollywood film that only returned 1 million on a 12 million budget. It almost makes me ashamed to be a some-time member of the press. But then, sucking up to fat cats never was my beat.
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