Maybe Shrub Should Chair Disney

Link courtesy of As'ad abu Kahlil
Put some mouse ears on, George:

A tale of conquest of the Orient, based on entirely false pretences ... Now where have we heard that one before?

That's the closing line of an article in today's Independent. The story is about a Disney movie called Hidalgo, a "true story" of how Fred Hopkins--and his horse--applied good old American spunk, derring-do, and know-how to win a famed Middle East horse race, the 3,000 mile-long Ocean of Fire, a hundred or so years ago. Hopkins took the best of the region to task, becoming the first Westerner to claim the title in its fabled 1,000 year-history.

Note that I used the term "fabled." That's because about the only truth to Disney's story is that Fred Hopkins certainly claimed this as part of his life-story--along with equally false tales of being at the Battle of Wounded Knee, having toured the world with Buffalo Bill, etc. etc. In fact, the very idea of a horse race called the "Ocean of Fire" is simply another myth--there's no such thing.

This hasn't kept Disney from marketing it as "the incredible true story," although, as the article notes,

Disney's executive director of international publicity, Nina Heyn, was quoted last year as saying, in an apparent moment of unguarded honesty, that "no one here really cares about the historical aspects", a line the company has been careful not to repeat since.

Sounds like the kind of movie Dubya would get a kick out of, and, better still, it reflects his method of thinking: why let the facts get in the way?