Journeys With George

Year: 2002

Grade: C

Country: USA

Director: Pelosi

Review

alexandra pelosi (a member of the bush campaign press corps) films her experience working amongst other journalists who are supposed to be reporting on the bush campaign from the inside. it sounds like a good idea for a film because it might (like, “primary,” “crisis,” and “the war room”) shed some light on bush and his campaign from a different perspective. for the most part, though, it’s about pelosi and her experience as a journalist in this situation. she does mention that she sometimes wonders who she works for – her network (nbc) or the bush campaign – since the bushies are the ones that fly everyone around and buy her four cakes on her birthday. she acknowledges, to a certain extent, the amount of gladhanding that the campaign does to get on the good side of the reporters, but she doesn’t flesh this out at all. one of her peers comments, just before the election is over, that he wished they had done a better job of (in essense) asking tough questions and writing real stories, but they didn’t because they were so “charmed” by bush. one gets the definite impression that bush is a charmer (albeit a childish type of charm) and he uses this to his advantage. by the end of the film i think it’s clear how much the bushies used the press corps. though it seems pelosi understands some of this she still makes a film that comes off much like her reporting probably looked – bush has a downside, but, gee, he sure is a nice guy. because for every minute of “this whole setup of us journalists trying to be impartial when we basically work for bush is a total sham” there is ten minutes of bush joking with the press corps, flirting with alexandra pelosi to get her vote (literally), and generally coming off as a nice, if somewhat immature, guy. we find out very little about who he really is and even less about his politics or campaign strategies. a disappointment primarily because of how good it could and should have been.