You Think You're Scared

On the morning of 9/11, George W. Bush looked like a child left behind. The president inexplicably continued to sit in a Florida classroom reading The Pet Goat after he had been told that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center.

That may be part of the reason that for his role in Fahrenheit 9/11, Bush has outpolled Gollum of The Lord of the Rings as the movie Villain of the Year, according to Total Film, a British magazine, which plans to publish the polls results next week. The news washes up on our shores from the London Evening Standard, via this story in The Register.

Lester Haines of The Register noted that in the poll of 10,000 readers, Bush also "eclipsed the contributions of Doctor Octopus, Leatherface (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre), and Elle Driver (Kill Bill)." Haines quoted Total Film editor Matt Mueller as having told the Standard:

It is possible that people have been a little bit tongue in cheek here, but they are also saying that Bush was very scary in Fahrenheit 9/11. He was absolutely terrifying in that film. He looked like a man who had lost control—the famous scene where he sits there in a school, absolutely paralyzed, after being told about the twin towers, is just one example.