The Movie: A Few Good Men, 1992 (Aaron Sorkin, screenwriter; Rob Reiner, dir.)
Who says it: Jack Nicholson as Colonel Nathan Jessep, a commanding officer who believes that the end justifies the means
The context: Navy JAG lawyer Daniel Kaffee (Tom Cruise) is interrogating Jessep about events that happened the night a soldier was killed.
How to use it: As an ironic defense against close questioning.
I don't like this movie and I think this scene, in particular, is way over the top, but there's no denying the power of the line.
Last night my friend Sarah Bibb threw an open house at her design studio to show her fall line, which included some adorable stuff. I'm buying nothing between now and my departure, though; I don't have room for anything else in the Beetle.
Friends of Sarah's set up a station to spray-paint t-shirts with political slogans, which were considerably above the usual snarkiness. I outgrew politics-by-t-shirt (or politics by bumper sticker) some time ago, but I did have them spray my shirt with a slogan that says, "USE YOUR WORDS." It was tough choosing between that one and another that said, "got fear?"
I'm not going to use this blog as a political platform, because I got out of that business on purpose. The issues are too complicated for the kind of spinning I used to do.
One of the things that alarms me about Los Angeles, though, is that people don't read newspapers. Even I don't read newspapers the way I used to; I get most of my news online, and fool myself that if I read Drudge AND Salon, I'm getting a balanced worldview.
My rationalization for this is the time difference; by the time I get up in the morning, East Coast news is already old. So we'll see if I change my habits again once I get to Maine.
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