We knew Oliver Stone wasn’t making W to make George W. Bush look good, but we didn’t know it was going to be an absurdist comedy. That’s the impression given by this report from ABC News, which contains several pages of details about an early draft of the script (and also misidentifies the actor cast as Bush as James Brolin instead of Josh Brolin, in the screencapped photo caption to the right). There are so many easy, cartoonish “Bush is dumb” jokes in this thing that’s it’s hard to cite a single one as being the most over the top. In flashback, George drinks vodka and orange juice out of a trash can at a frat party! Later, he threatens to shove “freedom fries” down Jacques Chirac’s throat! But I do think my favorite excerpt comes from the script’s alleged final scene:

Soon after a disastrous news conference in April 2004, Bush retreats to the White House den to watch a Texas Rangers game in the final scene of the script.

Popping open a nonalcoholic beer, he lapses into his favorite dream: playing center field for the Rangers. Hearing the crack of the bat, he looks up for the ball but he can’t find it in the sky.

I especially love how this is cited in the story as an example of how “the film also strives to paint a humanistic portrait of the commander in chief.” There’s nothing like a symbolism-loaded delusional fantasy to transform a caricature into a organically human character. This is truly what we need right now in order to put our contemporary global-political crisis into focus: heavy-handed metaphor and tired good ol’ boy jokes. Delicious.