Death Be Not Proud

George W. Bush has more to worry about these days than lousy poll numbers and convincing Americans that a plan for Iraq exists somewhere. Some nutcase/provocateur has made a new film, presented in the form of a fictionalized documentary and premiering at the Toronto Film Festival on Sept. 10 and airing on British television on Oct. 9, depicting his assassination.

Entitled “Death of a President� (or, as it’s called at the Toronto Film Festival, “D.O.A.P.,� as if that’s somehow less incendiary and/or changing what it’s about), the film examines the fallout following the assassination of the President when the suspect in the killing is a Syrian. Directed by Gabriel Range, who has made a couple of other speculative-fiction films playing off current events, the film posits that the President is shot in October 2007 in Chicago. The film combines archival footage with material shot for the film; an actor portrays the President, with Bush’s face digitally added. (So the upside is, the President could be up for a BAFTA Award.)

Noah Cowan, co-director of the Toronto Film Festival, explains, “The film is never a personal attack on Bush.� No, of course not – who’d be so silly as to construe a movie about your assassination as a personal attack?

“Range simply seeks,� Cowan continues, “to explore the potential consequences that might follow from the President's policies and actions.� Which couldn’t possibly have been done without shooting the guy. Range automatically nullifies any arguments he might make because those he’s ostensibly debating are already outraged at the premise and have dismissed the film as hate-mongering.

Must be something in W.’s DNA that inspires fiction-spinners to contemplate his death. In 2004, Nicholson Baker knocked off a slender volume entitled “Checkpoint� that concerned a guy whose outrage over the war in Iraq caused him to lose it and contemplate a loopy assassination plot. Remember when the worst attacks a President got from the media were goofy broadsides like this? (Ann Coulter has made a career out of calling for the deaths of sundry liberals, but hasn’t convinced Sumner Redstone of the commercial prospects for “Clinton’s Painful, Grisly Demise.�)

As Mayor of Television, I am frequently the target of many death threats, or, at least, less-than-complimentary Emails. And rumor has it that there is a project in the works about my own execution at the hands of extremist fundamentalists angered by my policies regarding reality TV. In fact, I have received through covert means an early draft of the script. While I must concede that “Death of a Mayor� boasts sparkling dialogue and some piquant assessments of some of my more ill-considered policies, I find the frequent allusions to the hair-gel scene in “There’s Something about Mary� downright baffling, the third act collapses completely, the sex scene is not only gratuitous and inappropriate but drags down the narrative’s momentum and the note in the script that all the mayor’s dialogue must be delivered in a high-pitched voice with a clumsy Italian accent threatens to damage the piece’s verisimilitude.