Oliver North, the wet-eyed, feel-good rightwinger of the Iran-Contra scandal, who now blabs across the airwaves to a constituency of (says he) three million, accuses Altman of spitting on Old Glory and “talking down America”.
North has urged his listeners to boycott Altman’s new movie, Gosford Park, for which he has received a best-director Oscar nomination, and says Altman should stay the hell out of America for remarks he made in the Times (London’s, not New York’s) and elsewhere recently. Altman had been completing Gosford Park in Britain.
A right-wing website called www.sendthempacking.com is soliciting contributions to pay the airfares of everyone who has said they find George W Bush’s United States unbearable, Altman included. All the neoconservative TV pundits — which is to say pretty much all the TV pundits — have weighed in on the subject, many of them citing Altman’s remark, “When I see the American flag flying, it’s a joke,” and his opinion that Bush is “an embarrassment”.
The fact that Altman said some of these things to the London Times just makes it worse. No matter that the Times often shares their caveman bellicosity; to Americans it’s just the house-rag of effete, perfidious Albion, another whining, vacillating European ally, and just the sort of paper to give Altman, whom North calls “that traitor”, a platform for his “un-American” views.
North and other conservatives were also disgusted to learn that Altman, once famed for his free-wheeling, licentious lifestyle, had quit drinking but wasn’t planning to forswear marijuana, his other favourite aid to creativity.
Despite a career spanning five decades, and more than 40 movies, including classics such as M*A*S*H, and Nashville, Altman has never received an Oscar for best director.