Errol Morris is coming (to the radio anyway)

I've spent part of the day listening back to my conversation with Errol Morris about his film "Standard Operating Procedure," which opens in the Twin Cities later this week.

We talked for more than half an hour. He says his film about the photographs taken at Abu Graihb which caused an international outcry is really about fairness. He thinks it's unfair that the soldiers who have been vilified and imprisoned for what they did are being used as scapegoats for larger government policies, and he thinks that while they are far from innocent, being made to take the blame for the larger failures of Iraq War policy is unfair.

Near the end of our conversation he equated the situation at Abu Graihb with "It's a Wonderful Life."

"What if Potter wins?" he said. "What if the little guys lose and the big guys win in the end? Is that the kind of America that we want? There's this crazy, crazy dream. No-one, really, when push comes to shove believes in absolute equality. They just don't. But we do believe in something just as important: that we should strive for equality, that there should be a level playing field, that there should be some kind of fairness. I find this story so deeply unfair. Yeah. It makes me angry. It makes me ashamed."

We'll air the interview before the end of the week.