Review of The Hunt for John Wilkes Booth (2007) by Adam C — 29 May 2008

I thought this was an amazing documentary and even though the book was not mentioned, it followed the information from "Manhunt" fairly closely. I wish that someone would make a full-length feature film on this subject as it truly is one of the best, albeit forgotten, conspiracies ever in American History. John Wilkes Booth is one of the biggest drama queens in American History. When you break it down, the assassination of Abraham Lincoln truly is a tragedy in the sense that it follows the classic recipe for a tragedy.

Here you have JW Booth whose hubris leads him to believe that he -- like Brutus -- is doing America, particularly the South, this gigantic favor. He thinks he's going to be hailed as this amazing hero...only to find out that once he does murder Lincoln, just like Brutus he is banished and as a traitor, forced to run. Like Oedipus, he's reduced to a wandering, poor wretched soul and he's no longer the hero he thinks he is.

And worst of all, the motherfucker completely ruined the Reconstruction that might have happened -- Abraham Lincoln being lenient with the South, giving his complete forgiveness and accepting them instead of the History that happened ... a bunch of overzealous, progressive liberal Republicans "punishing" the South for the War and essentially making the South a place that is, for the most part, poverty stricken and filled with a bunch of toothless rednecks who shop at Wal-Mart and vote for morons.