One would sort of imagine that seeing yourself lampooned in a big feature-film satire about contemporary politics would be something of an honor, or at the very least an indication of your real-world political clout, but apparently the industrialist/political fixer Koch Brothers are unhappy that they've been depicted as less-than-utterly awesome in the new Will Ferrell/Zach Galifianakis movie "The Campaign." So, now this movie is now something that's forcing "spokespersons" to issue "statements."
In the movie, Dan Aykroyd and John Lithgow play a pair of wealthy political donors named "The Motch Brothers." As Galifianakis explained in an interview with the New York Daily News, the filmmakers hoped to skewer the overwhelming influence that money has in politics. “Whether you are on the right or the left," said Galifianakis, "everyone can agree that there are a lot of outside influences in American politics that are not good for the system. There’s just too much money.” He went on to describe the Koch Brothers as "creepy" and confessed, "I disagree with everything they do."
This is a fairly non-controversial opinion that's shared by lots of people, and I'd always sort of assumed that the way the Koch Brothers deal with it is to just be content in the knowledge that they can buy and sell their critics a million times over. But somehow, Galifianakis' comment could not be allowed to stand, and so we have Koch spokesman Phillip Ellender doing that thing where he pretends to laugh off the criticism and then turns and gets deeply aggrieved:
"Last we checked, the movie is a comedy. Maybe more to the point is that it's laughable to take political guidance or moral instruction from a guy who makes obscene gestures with a monkey on a bus in Bangkok," said Philip Ellender, referring to a scene from the movie "The Hangover Part II."
Ellender continued: "We disagree with his uninformed characterization of Koch and our beliefs. His comments, which appear to be based on false attacks made by our political opponents, demonstrate a lack of understanding of our longstanding support of individual freedom, freedom of expression, and constitutional rights."
This movie is actually a thing the Koch Brothers are bothered about? Sheesh.
[Would you like to follow me on Twitter? Because why not?]
Before You Go
