Oliver Stone: The XYZs of "W."

George W. Bush with Condoleeza Rice and First Lady Laura Bush.

by Roger Ebert

Oliver Stone says he believes first lady Laura Bush, secretary of state Condoleeza Rice and presidential advisor Karen Hughes play like "a trinity of Macbeth witches" in the life of George W. Bush," in the sense that they are totally enablers." But Stone's new film "W." leaves that conclusion to the viewer. "The film foregrounds Bush, and everyone else is shown more or less as we already see them," he told me Wednesday in an e-mail exchange.

"Rice has no record that we were able to find where she contradicts either Rumsfeld or Cheney, or even does much really to help Powell. She doesn't seem to do much to bring alternative points of view to Bush's attention. But an enabler? Yes. If she had threatened him, perhaps she wouldn't have had the job."

And Laura Bush would not have had her job either, Stone believes, "had she been more critical of him."

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081015/PEOPLE/810169997