W. Page #12

Synopsis: Oliver Stone's biographical take on the life of George W. Bush, one of the most controversial presidents in USA history, chronicling from his wild and carefree days in college, to his military service, to his governorship of Texas and role in the oil business, his 2000 candidacy for president, his first turbulent four years, and his 2004 re-election campaign.
Director(s): Oliver Stone
Production: Lionsgate
  1 win & 7 nominations.
 
IMDB:
6.3
Metacritic:
56
Rotten Tomatoes:
58%
PG-13
Year:
2008
129 min
$25,517,500
Website
839 Views


tell me this before, huh?

Mr. President,

I wanna go back to Iraq.

Look, let me make this clear...

...since I've had some experience

dealing with these matters.

My son has got the toughest position

in the world.

He's the one

who gets the intelligence briefings.

And as Americans...

...it's our duty

to fully support his efforts...

...to bring freedom and democracy

to the Middle East.

And as a father...

...l'll be damned

if I'll listen to people...

...who are always trying

to tear the boy down.

And you know what?

They built him a set of metal legs...

...made him faster

than what he used to be.

They make them that good

these days.

You and I are gonna run together, son,

soon as you get back on your feet.

I give you my promise, all right?

Okay?

Got him a shirt. Maybe you can

give it to him when he wakes up.

I'd like...

...to stand up for you, sir.

No, you don't, sergeant.

No, I'm the one standing up for you.

Laura and I are looking forward

to seeing you next trip.

- All right, now?

- That's right.

All right, you hang in there.

Thank you.

Thank you.

David, good to see you.

- Mr. President.

- So, what do you got for us?

You used to love pecan pie,

Mr. President.

I've given up sweets

since the start of the war, Rummy.

My personal sacrifice

to show support for our troops.

The best pie I've ever tasted,

Mr. President.

So, what you're telling me, David,

comes down to nothing on nothing?

Frankly, we missed it...

...because Saddam pretended

that he had the weapons.

It doesn't make sense.

Why would he risk his life and

government by not coming clean?

Because I think...

...he didn't want his people to know

he didn't have the weapons.

Part of his Superman image.

Afraid they'd cut his throat

if they found out the truth.

You're saying this guy

was running a full house off a pair?

Come on, that's just nuts.

He really thought you were bluffing.

Right up to the end.

Me, bluff?

How could the CIA, all our

intel people, completely muff this?

I told Mr. Tenet from the beginning...

...that things weren't panning out

the way we thought they existed.

And your National Security advisers...

...should've got into this, gotten

the details and vetted them for you.

Believe me, Dr. Kay...

...when I say we were getting

thousands of reports...

...and not just from you or the CIA.

I don't see... I don't know that

putting the blame on some...

Mr. President, I think we're being

overly negative in a situation...

...where, indeed,

we lack the metrics...

...to judge the overall success

of the global war on terror.

My office sent to you

spy satellite photos...

...that showed that WMDs

could be hidden in caves...

...that you never responded to.

We analyzed those photos,

Mr. Vice President...

...and they are actually trenches,

watering holes for cattle.

Not caves.

That's not what my people told me.

Vice, you grew up in Wyoming.

You should damn well know cattle.

I mean, there you go.

You fool me once, shame on you.

Now, fool me twice...

...and you can't get fooled again.

I'm sorry, Mr. President.

We thought he had WMDs.

But we were all wrong about him.

And I include myself.

Our system...

...the integrity of it...

...has broken down completely.

And I have never traded access

for integrity.

And I am obligated to resign.

That was some sh*t sandwich

he served for lunch.

Working on it. We can

find someone who can deliver.

- I don't buy it. He had those weapons.

- No doubt.

But now we shift the ground.

Keep the focus

on freedom and democracy.

Rumsfeld is on another planet.

Sometimes I wonder.

I think he's lost it.

- What about Iran?

- Oh, yeah.

Bigtime uranium-enrichment

program going on.

- We're on it.

- Stay on it.

There's something there.

I can feel it.

Kansas State and Ohio State,

a pair of top- 10 teams squared off...

... in the Fiesta Bowl.

That was for the championship.

Krenzel, your MVP,

four touchdowns passing.

Funny thing...

...Poppy once said.

I didn't appreciate it.

What was that, Geo?

Something about:

"Sometimes it's better to stay

out of the barrel."

These lines here...

...seem like they just

dug in overnight.

You're as handsome as ever, Geo.

Only makes you look

more distinguished.

Your favorite play is coming to town.

Why don't we get tickets?

Cats.

The Broadway company

is going to be here.

You wanna go?

Cats?

That's something I'd stay up late for.

Definitely.

I thought so.

You know, I don't get it.

All this psychobabble in the media.

I mean, all I wanted to do

is make this a better and safer world...

...for everyone.

There's good and there's evil.

And you and I and the rest of the

people in America know the difference.

That good ultimately wins out.

But you have to fight for it.

You have to fight for it.

People have no idea

how hard it is on us.

The sacrifices you've made.

Laura, I knew when I married you

what you were made of.

That same bolt of lightning

hit both of us.

For better or worse.

Mostly better.

Since the start of the war, though...

...I barely have time

to run my three miles anymore.

My knees hurt.

I'm just off my pace.

It's been hard on me, Laura.

On top of everything else.

Well...

...someday the war will be over.

And we can have our lives back.

I'll get those tickets for next week.

- Poppy, what are you doing here?

- I used to sit in this chair.

Opposite Baker.

Got him to help pull your ass

out of the fire in Florida in 2000.

Don't forget that.

Come on. Let's go.

A little mano a mano.

- Bet you I can still whip your ass.

- What?

Got to admit, I scared you back then.

Still scare you, don't I?

I got a lot on my mind.

I don't need this, Poppy. Not now.

Why you being so ornery?

Because you disappoint me, Junior.

Deeply disappoint me.

After all these years. Still?

- You're still with that?

- No, no, no.

Not the girls or summer jobs anymore.

I dug myself out of the depths of hell

to stand on my own two feet...

...make something of myself.

And I did it on my own.

Think you did.

Yeah, well, you also wrecked it.

Wrecked. Wrecked what?

You've ruined it for us.

- What are you talking about?

- The Bush name.

Get out of my office.

Two hundred years of work. For Jeb.

Get out.

With this fiasco.

Get out of my life.

And that's what it is.

A goddamn fiasco.

Get out!

George. George.

Are you all right?

Oh, Jesus.

Jesus, George.

There's been tough weeks in Iraq.

But our central commitment

of the mission...

...is the transfer of sovereignty

back to the Iraqi people.

Now, we've set a deadline

for this to take place...

...three months from now.

June 30, 2004.

It's important that

we meet that deadline, all right?

The only way we can win...

...is to leave before the job is done.

Yeah.

I'll now take questions.

- Mr. President.

- Sir.

- Sir, sir.

- Question, sir.

Yeah.

Miss China?

Mr. President,

I know this is a tough question...

...but my viewers

would really like to know.

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes

Stanley Weiser

Stanley Weiser is an American screenwriter. He was born in New York City. He is a graduate of the NYU Film School. His screen credits include Wall Street and W., both directed by Oliver Stone. He also wrote the 20th Century Fox film, Project X. He is credited for creating characters in the sequel to Wall Street: Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps. In addition, he served as script consultant on Oliver Stone's Nixon and Any Given Sunday. Weiser's other projects include two civil rights dramas, developed as feature films, but made for television. Murder in Mississippi, a chronicle of the 1964 Freedom Summer movement and the lives and deaths of Cheney, Schwerner, and Goodman, the three young civil rights workers who were killed by the Ku Klux Klan, which aired on NBC in 1990. It was nominated for four Emmys and won the Directors Guild of America Award for best TV movie. Freedom Song, a semi-fictional account of the early SNCC movement in Mississippi, was co-written with Phil Alden Robinson, who also directed. They shared a Writers Guild of America Award and Humanitas nomination for the 2000 TNT film. Weiser also adapted the novel, Fatherland, by Robert Harris, for HBO. It was nominated for three Golden Globe awards and Miranda Richardson won for best supporting actress in a TV or cable movie. He wrote the NBC four-hour mini-series Witness to the Mob in 1998, which was produced by Robert De Niro. He also wrote Rudy: The Rudy Giuliani Story, for which he received a Writers Guild of America nomination for best TV movie. As of 2012, he wrote a biopic on the life of Rod Serling, the writer and The Twilight Zone creator. Weiser began his career as a production assistant for Brian De Palma on Phantom of the Paradise, and as an assistant cameraman on the Martin Scorsese documentary, Street Scenes. He is married and lives in Santa Monica, California. He is a founding member of the West Los Angeles Shambhala Buddhist Meditation Center. more…

All Stanley Weiser scripts | Stanley Weiser Scripts

0 fans

Submitted on August 05, 2018

Discuss this script with the community:

0 Comments

    Translation

    Translate and read this script in other languages:

    Select another language:

    • - Select -
    • 简体中文 (Chinese - Simplified)
    • 繁體中文 (Chinese - Traditional)
    • Español (Spanish)
    • Esperanto (Esperanto)
    • 日本語 (Japanese)
    • Português (Portuguese)
    • Deutsch (German)
    • العربية (Arabic)
    • Français (French)
    • Русский (Russian)
    • ಕನ್ನಡ (Kannada)
    • 한국어 (Korean)
    • עברית (Hebrew)
    • Gaeilge (Irish)
    • Українська (Ukrainian)
    • اردو (Urdu)
    • Magyar (Hungarian)
    • मानक हिन्दी (Hindi)
    • Indonesia (Indonesian)
    • Italiano (Italian)
    • தமிழ் (Tamil)
    • Türkçe (Turkish)
    • తెలుగు (Telugu)
    • ภาษาไทย (Thai)
    • Tiếng Việt (Vietnamese)
    • Čeština (Czech)
    • Polski (Polish)
    • Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian)
    • Românește (Romanian)
    • Nederlands (Dutch)
    • Ελληνικά (Greek)
    • Latinum (Latin)
    • Svenska (Swedish)
    • Dansk (Danish)
    • Suomi (Finnish)
    • فارسی (Persian)
    • ייִדיש (Yiddish)
    • հայերեն (Armenian)
    • Norsk (Norwegian)
    • English (English)

    Citation

    Use the citation below to add this screenplay to your bibliography:

    Style:MLAChicagoAPA

    "W." Scripts.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2025. Web. 17 Mar. 2025. <https://www.scripts.com/script/w._22968>.

    We need you!

    Help us build the largest writers community and scripts collection on the web!

    Watch the movie trailer

    W.

    The Studio:

    ScreenWriting Tool

    Write your screenplay and focus on the story with many helpful features.


    Quiz

    Are you a screenwriting master?

    »
    Who directed "The Silence of the Lambs"?
    A Stanley Kubrick
    B Jonathan Demme
    C David Fincher
    D Francis Ford Coppola