The Dork Knights

The Think Progress crew brings us this story on Glenn Beck being the latest Wingnut trying to be cool by citing Batman's actions in the Dark Knight as vindicating the Bush Doctrine on Warren Terrah.

But Batman goes into another country and with a C-130 snatches a guy out, and then throws him back here into Gotham. So there’s rendition. At one point the Morgan Freeman character says to Batman, wait a minute, hang on, you’re eavesdropping on everyone in Gotham? And Batman says, yes, to stop this terrorist. Morgan Freeman says, I can’t be a part of it. And yet Morgan Freeman does become a part of it, and they find the Joker. One of the ways they find the Joker is through eavesdropping. I mean the parallels here of what’s going on is to me stunning.

And Beck's not the only one cribbing fascism lessons from screen-adapted graphic novels either.

Writing in the International Herald Tribune in late July, Mark D. White and Robert Arp had the courage to ask the question that people who aren’t thinking are thinking about:

But if we say that Batman should kill the Joker, doesn’t that imply that we should torture terrorism suspects if there’s a chance of getting information that could save innocent lives?

Why is it that the Wingnuts do such a dismal job of pop culture references? Did they even see the movie? Batman's solution to the ticking time bomb scenario is more elegant and more heartening than anything Bush has done.

It's worth seeing the movie just for that.