How would you feel if a shrill San Francisco liberal followed you around for a year, videotaping every public moment of your life? President Bush handles it with aplomb in HBO’s new documentary, “Journeys With George.”
The White House had no reason to panic. “Journeys” is an entertaining, if lightweight, film, giving Bush admirers more to love, and his detractors more to bemoan.
Former NBC producer Alexandra Pelosi, daughter of Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., used a hand-held video camera to document her yearlong journey with Bush, from the New Hampshire primary to his 2001 inauguration. She shows a playful, quick-witted, charming man, who misses no opportunity to mug for the camera.
Bush strikes up an unlikely friendship with Pelosi. He constantly plays to her camera, exhibiting his disarming charisma and dry humor.
Pelosi’s wry, often superfluous, narration tries too hard at times. She seems to pattern herself after Michael Moore, the left’s premiere gadfly and documentarian. Pelosi’s “Journeys With George” moves briskly, carrying the same fresh cadence as Moore’s hilarious (if politically misguided) 1989 film Roger & Me. The pacing keeps the film enjoyable, but shallow.
“Journeys” touches on the repetitious rigors of the campaign trail, focusing closely on the traveling press corps. It also proves that the media loves nothing more than to talk about itself.
These campaign reporters are an awfully cynical lot, and many wear their biases on their sleeves. One jaded newspaper reporter, who has a penchant for singing 1960s hippie songs throughout the film, compares a bologna-and-cheese sandwich (Bush loves them, by the way) to Republican presidential nominees — all white bread, full of bologna, and Swiss cheese, which represents the holes in their arguments. Ho, ho.
So, what does “Journeys” tell us about Bush, the man? Near the end of the documentary, members of the boozy traveling press corps were celebrating something when Pelosi asked them informally who they thought would win the election. Fueled by margaritas, the overwhelmingmajority of reporters said Gore would win.
The story was leaked to the New York gossip columns the next day, and an embarrassed, angry press corps would not acknowledge Pelosi as they covered the day’s campaign events. But, much to her surprise, Bush walked up to Pelosi and said, “When they see me talking to you, they’re going to act like your friends again. But, they’re not your friends.”
“Journeys With George” offers no great glimpses into the inner machinations of modern presidential campaigning, but it does offer a profoundly likable unplugged take on some of the stops along the way.
Brian Shrader is an editorial intern of the John Locke Foundation in Raleigh.