Spielberg. Streep. Hanks. Though some might slightly roll their eyes at the Oscar-baiting (which, as we recently found out, was, indeed, taken by the Academy) nature of such a trifecta, the combination political thriller/biopic, The Post, is in no way a detriment to the current landscape. A seemingly bleak one that has people in need of a reminder that crookedness has long, if not always, been the norm. There is no better examplar of this fact than the decade of the 60s, when the Vietnam War was at its peak of ineffectuality. Except, as the now infamous Pentagon Papers would reveal, it wasn’t just the political missteps of the 60s that were to blame–it was decades-long “flawed” (as Meryl Streep in the character of Katharine Graham puts it) decision-making starting circa Truman.
Like so many institutions that end up hanging themselves, the study that would bring down the credibility of the White House was commissioned by the federal government’s very own Secretary of Defense Robert “Bob” McNamara (Bruce Greenwood) for, as he would call it, the aim of creating an “encyclopedic history of the Vietnam War.” Without informing President Lyndon Johnson or Secretary of State Dean Rusk upon commencing the project, McNamara bred a further web of secrecy within the White House that would bleed into the Nixon administration. And even if he was coming from “a good place” driven primarily by, as Daniel Ellsberg (Matthew Rhys) in The Post tells the unfortunately named reporter Ben Bagdikian (Bob Odenkirk), guilt, the Pentagon Papers were always shady. Ellsberg just finally found the gumption to expose them for what they were after going from a military analyst of the State Department to an independent contractor for the RAND Corporation.
As the butterfly effect of this act starts to ripple throughout the world of journalism, H.R. Haldeman, White House Chief of Staff and known lackey to Richard Nixon, sets the tone at the beginning of the film for the administration’s views on anyone who has a snarky or otherwise undesirable comment about the president and his ilk–hence Haldeman calling up Graham to tell her that her reporters are barred from the wedding of his youngest daughter, Julie, to most politically conveniently, the only grandson of Dwight Eisenhower, David. Upon relaying this information to her executive editor, Ben Bradlee (Tom Hanks), and gently trying to suggest that he make the Styles section less “mean” so as to avoid such snubs, he dismisses her completely, essentially telling her to shut up. This type of reaction from men doesn’t seem to upset her as it would a woman of today–as she later explains to her daughter, Lally (Alison Brie), “That’s what we were taught.” It was never a woman’s responsibility to be anything other than an unopinionated caretaker. And when Graham’s husband, Philip, committed suicide, or “had an accident” as scandal-avoiding people of the day seemed to like to call it, everything she had ever known–been conditioned to believe–about “being a woman” went out the window. But it doesn’t mean Katharine isn’t without hesitation in adopting the hardened, therefore, in men’s eyes, more confident demeanor she knows she must in order to be taken seriously. At another point during the emotional conversation with her daughter after deciding to publish other excerpts from the Pentagon Papers when The New York Times has received an injunction against doing so, she quotes something Samuel Johnson once said: “…a woman’s preaching is like a dog’s walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.”
“That’s nonsense,” Lally replies simply, her use of understatement somehow more powerful than screaming about what a load of twats men are (because in my mind she’s suddenly become British). Katharine reaches this moment of revelation mercifully in the nick of time, just as all of her closest advisors, including Fritz Beebe (Tracy Letts, as demure as he is in Lady Bird–which especially ties into Lady Bird Johnson here), belittle her decision as career suicide, not to mention the sure sinking of the already balked at “little family-owned paper” when investors learn of what she’s done. But the days of “meek” Katharine are gone, as her eyes have been opened to the censorious years of the government’s deceptions, in addition to her own self-deceptions about the friendships she’s had with major political players, including McNamara himself (plus the Kennedys and the Johnsons, the former of which Bradlee also allowed himself to be put in the back pocket of). And, what’s more, Katharine knows deep down that, as the Supreme Court ruling artfully puts it, “The role of the press is to protect the governed, not the governors.” Though the governors so often forget that, these days bandying such terms as “fake news” to detract from the credibility of our last journalistic outlets.
The obvious comparisons of Nixon and the extensive corruption of his administration, which managed to usurp previous ones also responsible for escalating the war, is not lost on any non-Trump supporter (the numbers of which increase by the minute). That the narrative of The Post feels as fresh today as it did then is both reassuring and terrifying. At the same time, Americans, still a newer country with the lingering indoctrination that freedom truly is an inalienable right, always seem to be more morally outraged when the curtain is pulled back to reveal what’s really going on within our government. Countries elsewhere, most of them in fact, tend to possess a more blasé attitude about such “revelations.” They’re well aware that corruption is pretty much par for the course of being “ruled,” not to mention generally existing within the framework of humanity.
In any case, the legacy of Katharine Graham has come a long way when taking into account that other iconic movie about The Washington Post, 1976’s All the President’s Men, which doesn’t feature her even as a bit character. Jason Robards as Ben Bradlee is in it though. And so, it’s timely to see Mrs. Graham get her full due (and, side bar, it’s also nice to see “For Nora Ephron” at the end of the credits–her sensibilities affecting so much these days), even though it would’ve been preferable for this to have happened in her lifetime.
