ABCNEWS.com: New Documentaries Tackle Current Affairs

ABCNEWS.com: "Michael Moore hyped Fahrenheit 9/11 as if it were the culmination of a cresting wave, but he hardly has the field to himself this summer.

There's a growing number of nonfiction films on current affairs, which usually means politics in this election year. They're diverse enough to prove Moore's brand of muckraking isn't the only way to bid for attention.

Bush’s Brain

You might think Bush's Brain satirizes a president whose campaign never focuses on the number of books and newspapers he's read. Yet people with the last name Bush make only fleeting appearances in this movie, adapted by Joseph Mealey and Michael Paradies Shoob from the eponymous 2003 book by James C. Moore and Wayne Slater.

It's about the brain behind the brain: that of Karl Rove, the strategist who's been engineering Republican campaigns for decades. He was the first person hired for George H.W. Bush's national run in 1980, and has been guiding George W. Bush since his 1993 gubernatorial run.

Despite his fondness for working quietly behind the scenes, Rove is such a close adviser to Bush that some observers rank him with Vice President Dick Cheney in governmental power."


By David Sterritt