May 12, 2006
Rupert Stavro Murdoch
Rupert Murdoch hosts a fundraiser for Senator Hillary Clinton. Of course it's significant. Murdoch may be a ruthless bastard, and deserved his kitsch immortality as the mogul Elliott Carver, villain of the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies, but he's as cool and focused as Warren Buffett. To defend his media empire from regulators dreaming of such unhelpful concepts as balance and competition, he needs to be right on major political shifts. That's why he ditched the Tories for Tony Blair in 1997. This is a classic hedge. Bill O'Reilly's days may be short. "Number 17, you have failed miserably!" (strokes Persian cat, presses concealed button)
Elliott Carver wasn't just doing a riff on Murdoch, he was also doing a riff on Robert Maxwell, Bill Gates, and even William Randolph Hearst.
Posted by: Glenn Hauman at May 12, 2006 09:01 PMHearst is the best fit historically (war-mongering madman) but hardly anyone in Britain today has heard of him. The Bill Gates references are incidental and I would guess thrown in to avoid a libel action. The normal British film spectator would automatically remember the Sun headlines during the Falklands War and think "Murdoch".
Posted by: at May 13, 2006 02:21 AMThe previous post was mine. As a blogger here I can change my posts, but mere commenters can't!
Posted by: James Wimberley at May 13, 2006 02:23 AM
