Take it from Snee: Batman is not Bush

Posted on July 23, 2008
Filed Under Take it from Snee | |

Remember when 300 was released and everyone was arguing whether George Bush was Leonidas or the Iraqi people were the Spartans? Or when both conservatives and liberals were claiming the titular role in V for Vendetta? Or if that was too long ago for you, how about when Wall-E came out and the Internet pipes burned with fat indigestion indignation and anti-environmentalism?

After The Dark Knight’s record-breaking weekend, several eggheads are already suggesting that Batman is President George Bush in the War of Terror.

SG Side Note:
If terrorists want to frighten Americans again, and–let’s face it–they haven’t lately, they should dress like clowns. Imagine those tiny little cars stuffed with 20 suicide bombers. Zounds!

As much as I love a good geek slapfight, I’m gonna have to put this one to rest. Sorry, but The Dark Knight is not about George Bush. It is, in fact, about my Great-Uncle Mortimer.

My Great-Uncle Mortimer, or Morty, as we all call him, was born in Baltimore, MD in 1943. He was the first natural-born American in our family since our family re-immigrated to America from Hungary. (They were originally from Ireland, immigrated to America in 1920, left in 1940 because they heard Hungary was nice, and then came back to America in 1942 because they left the oven on.)

(Don’t worry: their house didn’t burn down.)

During the war years, he worked at the docks as a welder and built no less than three aircraft carriers before the age of two. Unfortunately, he lost his job when the war ended because all the men came home.

Bored, he spent the rest of the 1940s studying criminology under the tutelage of Richard Stacy, a private investigator who was the real-life inspiration for funny page detective, Dick Tracy. Morty dropped-out of his program in 1950 because the classes consisted of reading comics all day, which isn’t very exciting after fighting hobos for sandwiches in the shipyards.

He boarded a ship and sailed to China that year to study karate. The ship crashed into the remains of PT-109 and sank, forcing Morty to swim the remaining 200 miles to the Korean peninsula. While being tended by a young doctor in the 4077th MASH unit, Morty cracked a joke about “this war that was trying to kill him” and then asked for a martini. The doctor told that joke to every patient and nurse he encountered, inspiring a novelist to write about cut-up surgeons in the Korean War.

But I digress.

Morty left as soon as his acute swimmer’s ear cleared up and caught a ride across the 38th parallel, straight up to the Chinese border with General Douglas McArthur. There he sat for two weeks in McArthur’s camp, waiting to cross over to his destination, but the General refused to budge. It was only after Morty started calling him “Dumbass McFarter” that the McArthur began challenging President Truman’s decision to not push the commies off the edge of the Earth. (Most of the world still believed the world was flat at that time, and would continue to do so until the CIA–and Morty–shot down Sputnik.)

When McArthur ate his stars to eventually pass them and mail them back to Truman, Morty disguised himself as an entire circus and slipped across the border. He fed himself by performing all the acts for Chinese and Russian units and eventually made it to Hong Kong.

When he got there, the King of Karate refused to teach him because he was white. It was that day that Morty learned that there are some people who are prejudiced in the world. So, Morty challenged the King to a duel. He watched the King’s armies practice and learned the deadly art of hand attack in one hour. He then kicked the King’s behind, but spared his life because he had a hot daughter.

In 1953, Morty left Hong Kong with his young wife and four sons to open a barber shop in New York City. Karate Chops, his shop, became an instant success because he was the only barber in New York who could cut hair with his bare hands. Not only that, but he could shave with them, too!

This is when tragedy struck: while attending the theatre with his wife and sons, a mugger stopped them with an elephant gun. The robber was able to fire off five shots before Morty open his pen knife and chop his head off. Unfortunately, those five shots killed the rest of his family.

Inconsolable, Morty took to the streets with a baseball bat, hurting the mafia so bad that they paid him to move to Wyoming. He spent the rest of his life there, fly-fishing and eating hamburgers until he died in 2004.

Before Morty died, though, he received a series of calls from “some Nolan guy,” who kept asking him about his life story. Until this movie came out, I thought it was Nolan Ryan. (Sorry if sounded crazy in those letters, Mr. Ryan!)

So, that’s how I know that The Dark Knight is not about George Bush, but about my Great-Uncle Morty. Though he didn’t live to see this movie, I’m sure he’d say what he always said to me before tucking me in: “I won’t kill you, but I don’t have to save you.”

What? It’s just as sound as any of the other theories floating around.

Written by Rick Snee

Comments

2 Responses to “Take it from Snee: Batman is not Bush”

  1. Bryan McBournie on July 24th, 2008 10:24 am

    What if Bush is really Two Face? Or maybe he’s Alfred the Butler? One this is confirmed, Sen. Patrick Leahy is a scared rich person in that movie (cameo).

    I just blew your mind, didn’t I?

  2. Chug on July 24th, 2008 11:11 am

    Screw that noise. Bush is totally Dr. Phosphorous. Everyone knows that.

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