Ain't Gonna Happen in NM

Among all the Batman portrayers, one of my favorites was always Val Kilmer. I'll watch the entire three hours of Tombstone, just to watch Kilmer at the OK Corral, sweating with fever and throwing his jacket off his shoulders to start the shooting. When he shows up at the end for the face-off with Johnny Ringo, I'll rewind the "I'm your huckleberry..." line several times.

That's why I was a bit surprised when he announced that he might run to replace Bill Richardson as governor of New Mexico. But, now this has resurfaced:

Kilmer in July 2005 Esquire Magazine

In case you don't want to read through the whole thing and ooze over his ranch and love of bison, just focus on this pithy little section:

Kilmer: Oh, sure. It's not like I believed that I shot somebody, but I absolutely know what it feels like to pull the trigger and take someone's life.

You understand how it feels to shoot someone as much as a person who has actually committed a murder?

I understand it more. It's an actor's job. A guy who's lived through the horror of Vietnam has not spent his life preparing his mind for it. He's some punk. Most guys were borderline criminal or poor, and that's why they got sent to Vietnam. It was all the poor, wretched kids who got beat up by their dads, guys who didn't get on the football team, couldn't finagle a scholarship. They didn't have the emotional equipment to handle that experience. But this is what an actor trains to do. I can more effectively represent that kid in Vietnam than a guy who was there.

Did you get that? Because he is an actor he knows what killing a man in combat is like? Did you get that characterization of the several million Americans who cycled through the Vietnam War? Do you think the hundreds of thousands of vets in NM aren't going to notice this?

Put a fork in him. He's done.