January 29, 1970 [MASH]

The ‘70s are going to be in big trouble. Sure, buncha hypocrites that we are, we get what we deserve—and become it, too: an easy target. The movie refuses to back down, loving only its own clarity and its jaundiced souls stuck in the mud. There's something smug in all this, of course—but again: We’ve let the damn thing get this far, until all we have is rage against the dying of the light—while stamping on what little glimmer we have left.

When they finally drive Frank Burns insane, something unexpected happened: I began to feel bad for the bad guys, trapped in a movie that was just waiting for them to be themselves so it could strip them down for useless parts and run them around like dogs with a string of firecrackers tied to their naked tails. Is it me, or is there something cruel in this new hierarchy? At the top, people who know better but who sit back, powerless and left with nothing but scorn and irony, and unsparing in their blows; at the bottom, ill-used patriots and war-slaves MASH-ed into hamburger right there in front of Walter Cronkite, too many oven-baked Southeast Asians, and us.

But hold on a minute: We can blame Richard Nixon for MASH! After all, he always seems to be gearing up for some kind of deviltry, his razor-raw neck retreating into his collar, his darting eyes searching-and-destroying with scowling, joyless doggedness. And so yeah, why not: He asked for it, he came back so we could kick him around some more, and so I guess I’m willing to let Donald Sutherland, Elliot Gould, and Robert Altman have at him, no matter how much bad blood will be spilled among us as the decade slouches toward.