I am usually taken aback by the releases featuring Bill Moyers covering political and religious topics, but Capitol Crimes only half wowed me. I think the problem here is that Capitol Crimes features the title feature which looks at the Abramoff scandal and kind of combs over the lobbying world and the events leading up to Abramoff’s arrest. I’ve actually reviewed one or two of the films that have come out about Abramoff (Casino Jack, the alternate reality like drama Across The Line, and even watched the documentary Jack Abramoff and the United States of Money) so this feature seemed a bit like overkill to me. It was first released in 2006 so at some point I may have even come across it and watched bits and pieces of it. To me it just felt like a reminder that you can never trust anyone, especially people associated with government. Their positions may be glamorized in children’s text books and hammered into the minds of college students looking to do something for the good of us all, but really these are just people. Fallible and human to the core with no switch that we can hit when we put them in power to make sure they stay the course and don’t do anything corrupt. It doesn’t work that way.

I was actually more wowed by the bonus program titled Buying The War. If you know me you know my stance on Bush’s war and how I feel like media played a huge role in making sure we were constantly fed with fear and hyped up to embrace a kind of false sense of patriotism which was really just them feeding the more primal violent side of human nature. This program covers the time leading up to the war, the tactics that were used by Bush and his people, and the use of manipulation and fear through the media outlets to make sure that we either feared for our lives and or were calling for blood. I won’t lie, I’m just as guilty as the next guy. I believed Bush in the beginning, but as his war started to seem more and more paper thin and he was simply going ahead with his plan to attack Iraq I lost all faith in the guy. He had great speech writers, he was a good speaker (in the beginning), but even now I wonder how the man did not get impeached. Buying The War talks to several politicians, media men, and covers a barrage of archive news clips and documents to make the case that we were really duped.

Other bonus features include:
~A Conversation with Historian and Writer Andrew J. Bacevich (56 min.) and A Discussion with Mother Jones Contributor Kevin Drum and Washington Bureau Chief David Corn (57 min.)
~8-page viewer’s guide with articles on the history of the lobbying process and the federal government’s safeguards against corruption.
~Biographies of the scandal’s main figures and a biography of Bill Moyers
~Plus more at athenalearning.com
~SDH subtitles