May 11, 2003: Playwright Says Bush a ‘Bad Actor’

Arthur Miller. [Source: OvationTV.com]Playwright Arthur Miller has written about the level of “acting” in the White House, and given the best marks to Franklin Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton. He is not so impressed with George W. Bush’s performances. “To me it is all puffery,” Miller will write on May 11 in regard to Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” presentation (see May 1, 2003). “He is strutting about like the bad actor he is, but film and theatre are full of bad actors who find a public. The crowning moment of his presentation was his having emerged from an airplane that he did not land, in a pilot’s get-up with the helmet gallantly under one arm, as if he had passed through heavy enemy fire. At long last some commentators caught on to this, but I’m afraid the yahoos may have fallen for it.” [Dean, 2004, pp. 74]