Liberal Talk Radio

Oliver Stone has long been on my “do not call” list* — not so much for the tinfoil hat-like “JFK” as “The Doors,” which was just so ridiculously over the top** — so it was somewhat surprising to see that “World Trade Center,” his latest film, got such rave reviews from so many unlikely people. For a minute there I even thought that I might want to see it***. Now comes word that this publicity push has been part of a concerted effort on behalf of the folks who brought you Swift Boat:

Oliver Stone, that symbol of everything about Hollywood that conservatives love to hate, is getting help in marketing his newest movie from an unlikely ally: the publicity firm that helped devise the Swift boat campaign attacking John Kerry’s Vietnam record in the 2004 presidential race.

The campaign has paid off:

L. Brent Bozell III, president of the conservative Media Research Center and founder of the Parents Television Council — best known for its campaigns against indecency on television and for stiffer penalties on broadcasters — called it “a masterpiece” and sent an e-mail message to 400,000 people saying, “Go see this film.”

Cal Thomas, the syndicated columnist, wrote last Thursday that it was “one of the greatest pro-American, pro-family, pro-faith, pro-male, flag-waving, God Bless America films you will ever see.”

(Mr. Stone, for his part, has insisted in the past that the film is “not a political movie,” while acknowledging in a recent interview that this “mantra” had been handed to him by his employers.)

To top it all off, a writer on The National Review’s Web site, Clifford D. May, actually wrote the words “God Bless Oliver Stone.”

Stone, for his part, seems remarkably unconcerned:

Reached in Boston, Mr. Stone said he knew nothing of the public-relations firm’s background other than that it had helped to promote “The Chronicles of Narnia” last year for Walden Media and the Walt Disney Company. “Believe me, I didn’t cave,” he said. “They do it their way,” he said, referring to Paramount’s marketing executives.

Mr. Stone said that he condemned the “Swift-boating” of Mr. Kerry, but cautioned that he himself had “hired publicists in the past that had skeletons in their closet.” He added: “It’s not a holier-than-thou street here. It’s an impure market.”

*Along with Michael Moore, M. Night Shyamalan and Kevin Smith

**His oeuvre since then makes me think I’m not missing much — “Looking for Fidel”? “Any Given Sunday”? — and I say this as someone who really liked “Platoon”.

***To add insult to injury, I even participated in some small talk about it this week.