Do you want us to love him or hate him?

Due to my minimal documentary watching experience, I started out, and ended, watching this movie wondering if Errol Morris wanted me to hate Mcnamera or love him. I just could not figure it out. Probably because the director would, one minute, make the implications that Mcnamera is an honest and loyal person, and then would go on to imply that he was just another politician. So which one is it?

I came to the conclusion that it was none of the above. In my opinion, the director wanted his audience to see that Mcnamera was the epitome of the phrase “fog of war” (Also the name of the documentary). He was complicated, and what he had to deal with was complicated. Not one citizen can understand what position he was in. I could be wrong, but I could also be very correct. Either way, I know the director went about this persuasion by stressing Mcnamera’s positive attributes rather than his negative.

As crooked as the some of the lines behind Mcnamera’s head during the interview were, there were just as many straight lines. As many negative characteristics of his were shown, just as many, if not more, positive characteristics were shown.

Starting out with the shot of the interview where he is talking about how every military official has made mistakes and that we should admit them in order to better himself, shows us that Mcnamera was an honest man. He admits all of his mistakes, and for the most part said the word “we” when he was pointing out all that went wrong in the Vietnam War.

The audience is forced to take Mcnamera’s side in the movie at 1:01:30 in his recording with President Johnson. This is done by turning the audience against Johnson. The President will not even let Mcnamera finish his sentences on his opinion of why we should take our troops out of the unwinnable war.

When given two people that have two different opinions, the audience feels compelled to pick ones side. In this scene, the audience has no choice but to pick the man’s side opposite of the man that does not listen to what is to be said. In this case, the audience takes Mcnamera’s side. Even though he was the Secretary of Defense, and therefore in charge of many of the murders that happened in Vietnam, this recording makes the audience believe that it was not his fault.

Mcnamera’s soft side (the side that no one sees in politicians, especially in the Secretary of Defense) is seen at 1:00:00. He talks of Kennedy’s death. The Secretary of Defense starts crying. How can the audience not feel sympathy for this man? I sure could not help myself, especially after that scene, to feel like this politician was actually a human being who felt bad for what he had done, and knows that he made mistakes.

This was no Tiger Wood’s apology. Honestly, it was no apology at all. It was an acceptance that he, along with the rest of the officials, had made mistakes. But it was authentic. It was real, and that is what made me realize what Errol Morris was trying to convince us all along. That war is complicated, and before calling someone a “son of a bitch” you have try to learn what went on behind the scenes. I learned to empathize (Mcnamera’s number one lesson).