Quotes
-
President : [the President and Peter Bradford are talking about the former president in the Oval Office] He had no choice. I suppose when one becomes President, one has a tendency to justify a predecessor. A way of ensuring whoever follows some tolerance of your decisions... right or wrong. He saved a nuclear holocaust. In my opinion, the way he handled the transition of power, he saved thousands of lives. Maybe millions, in what would have been futile resistance.
Peter Bradford : How can anyone know that? How could he have not given us a chance?
President : You had a chance. I had a chance. We all had chances. Have you ever been to the Middle East, Mr. Bradford.
Peter Bradford : No.
President : For hundreds of years, the ordinary person, a traitor, the person trying to survive, has learned not to approach his problems directly. It's simple. You seem to support one thing, then next the exact opposite. All because that was the means of survival in the place that fate had placed them in. They were born, make love, have children, are well-off or poor, and die. Much in the same way as free men.
Peter Bradford : Next comes freedomness from within each of us.
President : In a way, it is. This is not an issue of freedom. It's survival.
[beat]
President : I know you don't like me. You see me as a stooge, a collaborator. I'm not a party member. I sit on a national advisory committee... equivalent to the Central Committee in the Soviet Union. But I do not vote. I have no power... a figurehead only. The only real effect I can have is to create the impression that things aren't as bad as they are... to give our people time. The opportunity to survive.
Peter Bradford : I guess I just never realized that it had gone so far... that we'd lost so much control.
President : Totalitarianism doesn't need armies. It only needs to control a couple of things... the media and the ability to dispense privilege to some, and withhold it from others. Of course, a weak and divided people helps.
Peter Bradford : I don't think I can do it.
President : It's a little late for second thoughts.
Peter Bradford : I had some illusion I could help bring it back.
President : [leans forward] I believe you can do something. Something finally good, for the people of your area, possibly for everyone. But it will require a lot of compromise. You may even learn to be a Middle Eastern traitor.
[smiles]
President : .