Tricamo-Palmer-W

The two scenes that best represent Bush's presidency in this movie are the one where Bush and Cheney discuss torture over lunch, and the one where Bush cannot answer a reporters question at the end.

The scene with Bush and Cheney represents two things key to the Bush presidency. The first one is obvious, and it is seen in the fact that they are talking about the use of torture. The questionable means by which the Bush administration went about dealing with the war on terror were a hot topic of controversy. It started to become clear that the military was indeed using torture on suspected terrorists. There were other ways in which the government went about the war poorly, such as not getting congress' approval and relying on faulty information, but torture is a good way to represent all that. The other thing that this scene shows is the common belief that Cheney was the one running the country, while Bush was just a figure.

The scene where Bush is speachless when asked by a reporter "What was your biggest mistke?" is a good way to show the kind of person he appeared as. Firstly, because he never admitted to making mistakes. Even when it was clear to the rest of us that his administration had taken action based on bad information, he never quite took responsibility for messing up. The scene also shows how he was a charismatic speaker but not particularly bright, or at least this was how he appeared. You can see in the scene that because he cannot come up with a witty response, he is seems completely destroyed.