As Hollywood's most excitable auteur, Oliver Stone's trademarks include quick cuts, bombastic music, and out-of-place John McGinley cameos. But the chief quiver in his bow has been his uncanny ability to whip the conservative noise-machine into a proper frenzy. So far, though, despite our greatest efforts, Stone's planned George Bush biopic has been met with deafening silence from America's most excitable conservative bloviators.

In fact, even the faintest of right-wing murmurs regarding the film have already died out. The New York Post kept the story off the front page upon the announcement in favor of a gimpy Tom Brady; inside, the paper regurgitated a wire feed story and the distinctly unsnarky headline, "Oliver Doing Dubya Flick." Both William Bennett and George Will were mum. None of the Fox News editorialists mustered much—not even Bill O'Reilly, who, despite showing admirable flair for taking on directors-of-a-certain-age during his recent feud with Brian de Palma, met the announcement Tuesday with a program to investigating an upswing in exorcisms.

Stone's fellow conspiracy theorists can debate the hidden source of the kid-glove treatment: Is it tacit acknowledgment of the president's unpopularity within his party? Could the right have some leftover good will for Stone after his warm and fuzzy World Trade Center? Or is it a simple case of all the wingnuts choppering in under cover of darkness to a fortified, undisclosed location for a screening of Any Given Sunday and suddenly realizing, "Wait, what are we worried about? This guy is a freaking idiot!"?