Now that the White House and State Department have made clear that they believe movies compel terrorists to terrorize, it’s time for them to get ahead of this problem. And one thing the White House can do immediately is to pressure Sony to stop the release of director Kathryn Bigelow’s “Zero Dark Thirty,” which celebrates the killing of Osama bin Laden.
I’m only saying this because, you know, the White House and the media told me movies inflame and cause terrorism.
Think about it: if the poorly produced and laughably bad trailer for “The Innocence of Muslims” results in chaos, murder, and the burning of foreign outposts all throughout the Middle East, how much rioting and mayhem is a big-budgeted, slickly produced, Oscar-bait blockbuster celebrating the death of the leader of al-Qaeda going to cause?
Moreover, an excuse Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will not be able to use in the case of “Zero Dark Thirty” (as she did with “Innocence of Muslims”) is the cowardly and self-righteous claim that the federal government and the Obama White House had nothing to do with “Zero Dark Thirty.”
Because the federal government and the Obama White House had everything to do with “Zero Dark Thirty.”
As we now know, in an effort to get this glitzy in-kind contribution (tens of millions of dollars) up on the screen in time to affect the election, it was the Obama Administration that gave the filmmakers tons of encouragement and a troubling amount of access to all kinds of classified material.
But this very same Obama Administration has since learned that it wasn’t the Obama Doctrine of disengaging with the Middle East and embracing the Muslim Brotherhood that caused all this mayhem and murder last week. It was a movie.
This means that the only responsible thing for the Obama Administration to do is to get proactive and, in the interest of national security and to help ensure the safety of Americans overseas, put as much pressure as they can on Sony to stop the distribution of “Zero Dark Thirty.”
After all, this is what the Administration did to YouTube to stop the distribution of “The Innocence of Muslims.”
And I’m certain no one in Hollywood would be alarmed if the government were to pressure Sony not to release its film. Why would they if they won’t stand up for the “Innocence of Muslims” filmmaker being persecuted by our government and media overlords today?
You know, because movies create terrorism.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC
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