Pat Dollard's ambition to become a “conservative icon, the Michael Moore of the right"

I just started reading Evan Wright's essay, Pat Dollard’s War on Hollywood. The essay is introduced thus:

In 2004, having made his name as Steven Soderbergh’s agent, Pat Dollard was the stereotypical Hollywood operator: coked-up, Armani-sheathed, separated from his fourth wife, and rapidly self-destructing. But when he hit bottom, Dollard didn’t go back to rehab; he went to Iraq, embedded with the Marines, and filmed a pro-war documentary, which has the industry buzzing and right-wingers hailing him as the anti–Michael Moore. But whether he’s surviving mayhem in Ramadi or dining with Ann Coulter in Los Angeles, Evan Wright reports, Dollard’s life is a one-man combat zone.

Wright writes:

Given the decades of substance abuse, the idea of the chain-smoking, middle-aged Hollywood agent accompanying Marines into battle was sort of like Keith Richards competing in an Ironman Triathlon. But Dollard thrived. “My first time in a combat zone, I felt like I had walked into some bizarre fucking ultra-expensive movie set,” he would later say. “I had this vivid clarity, like when I used to take LSD. I felt joy. I felt like I had a message from God, or whoever, that this is exactly what I should be doing with my life. I belong in war. I am a warrior.”
...
Dollard sits across from me at a hotel restaurant near the Los Angeles airport, tearing into a breakfast of waffles, bacon, and black coffee while talking about his ambition to become a “conservative icon, the Michael Moore of the right.” He is well on his way, thanks in no small part to a terrible incident that occurred last February in Iraq. While filming U.S. troops in Ramadi, a Humvee Dollard was riding in was struck by a bomb. Two Marines were killed, but Dollard—in keeping with a streak of freakishly good luck—was thrown clear from the fiery wreckage and emerged unharmed but for a two-inch cut on his right leg.
...
No small part of his appeal to the right is the fact that Dollard was once a “doctrinaire liberal” who could even boast of close ties to Robert Kennedy Jr., but now speaks of his pro-war stance in the most militant terms: “This is a propaganda war, and if I can fight with a camera the same as a Marine with his rifle, I will.”
...
He is in L.A. today at the invitation of Andrew Breitbart—longtime contributor to the Drudge Report and self-described “right-leaning Hollywood basher,” but, a free-thinker, who helped create the Huffington Post. Breitbart plans to introduce him to potential financial backers.

Dollard’s film teaser is less like a documentary than agitprop. It opens on two young Marines hunched over their machine guns at a roadblock. It’s the winter of 2005. Both are shivering from the cold, warily eyeing the civilian cars which at any moment they may be called upon to shoot. The Marines pass the time speculating about what kids their age might be doing back home. One of them turns to the camera, concluding, “They’re over at home smoking blunts, fucking watching MTV, sitting on their fat ass. Well, fuck you.”

That's just from page one. There are 15 more pages. I know Wright is a Leftie and I expect some spin but so far, so good. And I'm not sure that Dollard hasn't lost a few marbles but I'll keep reading.

PS One last quote:

“The true savagery in this war is being committed by the American left on the minds of the young men and women serving over there by repeatedly telling them that their cause is lost.” He adds, “My goal is to de-sensitize young people to violence. I want kids to watch my film and understand that brutality is the fucking appropriate response to a brutal enemy.”

PPS Just one more:

Breitbart believes Dollard is onto something important. “There needs to be a confrontation at the pop-culture level of the kids who are over there fighting versus the kids at home who are totally disconnected, immersed in this mindless Abercrombie & Fitch–MTV culture.” Breitbart adds, “There needs to be a revolution, and Dollard is the man who can kick it off. I don’t care if older conservatives are offended by Pat Dollard. I was not looking for someone pristine. He brings to our cause this whole spirit of, like, the Merry Pranksters Two.”

Perhaps it’s no surprise that Ann Coulter adores his work. Like Breitbart, she recognizes his ability to reach young people in ways that other conservatives don’t.