Posted on 02/27/2026 6:43:50 AM PST by Twotone
North Korea hacked into the computers of a Hollywood studio in 2014, and the company's former executive now blames himself—or his own childhood—for okaying a movie that angered the dictator in Pyongyang, Kim Jong Un.
"Curiously, I never really got angry at the North Koreans, on the assumption that if you kick the hornet's nest and get stung, you can't really blame the hornets," the former CEO of Sony Entertainment, Michael Lynton, writes in an excerpt that appeared in the Wall Street Journal of his new book, From Mistakes to Meaning: Owning Your Past So It Doesn't Own You.
In the book excerpt, Lynton depicts then-President Barack Obama as critical of Sony's decision to make the movie. "I spoke to President Obama about the whole incident. Unsurprisingly, he asked the right question: 'What were you thinking when you made killing the leader of a hostile foreign nation a plot point? Of course that was a mistake.'"
The movie, The Interview, a Seth Rogen and James Franco vehicle, depicts journalists recruited by the CIA to assassinate the communist autocrat. It was eventually released in 2014, mostly on streaming via Stripe and Google, after the attacks threatened violence against theaters that screened the film.
In the attack itself, the North Korean hackers dumped thousands of private emails, including Lynton's, as well as employee social security numbers, salaries, and unreleased films.
In public, Obama took a different stance than the one Lynton attributes to him privately. Obama said at a Dec. 19, 2014, news conference, "We cannot have a society in which some dictator someplace can start imposing censorship here in the United States. Because if somebody is able to intimidate folks out of releasing a satirical movie, imagine what they start doing when they see a documentary that they don't like or news reports that they don't like. Or even worse, imagine if producers and distributors and others start engaging in self-censorship because they don't want to offend the sensibilities of somebody whose sensibilities probably need to be offended. So that's not who we are. That's not what America is about. … Do not get into a pattern in which you're intimidated by these kinds of criminal attacks."
Others serving in the Obama administration at the time confirmed the blame-Sony attitude described by, and ultimately internalized by, Lynton. Richard Stengel, a former managing editor of Time who served in the Obama administration as undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs, recounted in a Vanity Fair excerpt from his own book that "the collective reaction by everyone at the State Department was a yawn. Responses ranged from, It's not our problem, to Sony was stupid to use Kim's actual name, to What do you expect when you insult a head of state and threaten another country?"
In the Journal excerpt, Lynton partially blames his own upbringing for his decision to greenlight the movie. "When I was 9, my parents moved from Scarsdale, N.Y., to Wassenaar, Holland. I did not speak the language and felt desperate to make friends," he explains. He "never got invited to parties." In approving the movie, "my middle-school self took over."
Commenters on the Journal website ridiculed the Lynton book excerpt. One Journal reader, Donald Feldman, wrote, "It was a great movie and the right decision to release it. Lynton's orgy of self-blame is pathetic. No one could have anticipated that N Korea could have hacked the information that they did. Lynton's conclusion seems to be that appeasement is always the right decision when confronted by a grotesque bully." That was the most-liked comment of all 401 on the Journal website.
Another popular comment was from Aaron Sawchuk: "Are you kidding me? The lesson you learned was to self-censor against a brutally repressive regime? Truly a profile in courage. Pathetic."
What's the point of having America control Hollywood if we can't make a movie mocking a communist dictator?
Lynton did not respond by deadline to a request for comment sent via the book's publisher. Lynton and his coauthor, Joshua L. Steiner, who was chief of staff to then-Treasury secretary Lloyd Bentsen during the Clinton administration, are scheduled to appear March 11 at Johns Hopkins University's Bloomberg Center in Washington, D.C.
The actual book is even worse than the Journal excerpt. In addition to Lynton's story about how his big mistake was getting North Korea angry, there's a chapter by Steiner, who was in the news during the Clinton administration for keeping a diary and writing in it about aspects of the Whitewater scandal, which related to a real estate investment made by Bill and Hillary Clinton. The rest of the book is interviews with other people (including author Malcolm Gladwell and former New York Times executive editor Max Frankel's son David Frankel, who is a movie director) about their "mistakes," which are mostly minor career miscues.
Lynton, a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Business School, is a former member of the Harvard Board of Overseers, one of the university's two governing boards. He was also a member of Harvard's Task Force on Inclusion and Belonging. Joshua Steiner's father, Dan Steiner, was Harvard's general counsel from 1970 to 1992, and Joshua Steiner now serves on Yale's Board of Trustees.
Steiner writes that he regrets "having tried too hard to mitigate the diary's damage by hedging and modifying, explaining and interpolating what I had written."
"In an effort to protect my colleagues, and to ameliorate their unhappiness with me, I drew additional attention to what I had written," Steiner goes on. "I tried to recharacterize what I had written or add additional context around it. I said that what I wrote wasn't meant as a verbatim account, that I had jotted down my impressions. All those explanations understandably sounded as if I were disowning what I myself had written. Something about my personality made me too eager to please my colleagues, too concerned about their reactions."
Steiner writes, "I should have followed that old adage: 'Never complain, never explain.'"
He and Lynton should have followed that wisdom, too, before compounding their mistakes by publishing this book.
Dear FRiends,
We need your continuing support to keep FR funded. Your donations are our sole source of funding. No sugar daddies, no advertisers, no paid memberships, no commercial sales, no gimmicks, no tax subsidies. No spam, no pop-ups, no ad trackers.
If you enjoy using FR and agree it's a worthwhile endeavor, please consider making a contribution today:
Click here: to donate by Credit Card
Or here: to donate by PayPal
Or by mail to: Free Republic, LLC - PO Box 9771 - Fresno, CA 93794
Thank you very much and God bless you,
Jim
Lesson here, heckler’s veto works, better to do what your bully says than to make him mad.
WRONG LESSON COWARD!
Hollywood keeps proving that it is full of idiots who believe that everything they do & say are precious, and try to rule us with their opinions. So, just sut up Hollywood. No one is really listening to you washed-out losers anyway.
Anyone here recall that movie where President Bush (junior) was assassinated? Happened during his term in office IIRC. A leftist wet dream no doubt.
” Lynton depicts then-President Barack Obama as critical of Sony’s decision to make the movie. “I spoke to President Obama about the whole incident. Unsurprisingly, he asked the right question: ‘What were you thinking when you made killing the leader of a hostile foreign nation a plot point? Of course that was a mistake.’””
Pussy. And that Sounds like Obama. He get upset about Inglorous Bastards? He get upset about dozens of movies about mowing down Haji? You can kill Russians by the bushel basket, make all the females whores, and insult their entire society. You can make every Christian a racist hateful child molesting bigot... but God forbid you upset the sensibilities of North Korea.
You cannot detest these people enough.
The Norks didn’t try this after “Team America World Police” came out. Trey Parker woulda come out with a sequel of Kim taking it up the azz and made it super funny.
‘...blames his own upbringing for his decision to greenlight the movie. “When I was 9, my parents moved from Scarsdale, N.Y., to Wassenaar, Holland. I did not speak the language and felt desperate to make friends,” he explains. He “never got invited to parties.” In approving the movie, “my middle-school self took over.”’
For the love of God, this is one of the most pathetic excuses I’ve ever heard of a grown man making. Approve or disapprove the stupid movie, man, and own your decision... no one really remembers nor cares about “The Interview”... but “I’m a Dutchman who just wanted to be liked by the cool kids”?! Seriously?? This is sadder than just saying nothing.
Watch Seth Rogan issue a communist style apology and capitulate.
The movie, The Interview, a Seth Rogen and James Franco vehicle, depicts journalists recruited by the CIA
.....
I wouldn’t discount that the coup initiating agency was involved in both sides of this..
The movie and the hack.
> a Seth Rogen and James Franco vehicle
Funny. I should think the lesson learned here would be, “Never put money into a Seth Rogen vehicle.” I mean, aside from doing voice-overs for animated characters like Kung-Fu Panda, the guy has a long and proud history of writing, directing, and acting in big budget commercial flops. How he continues to get work is a mystery.
(‘...blames his own upbringing for his decision to greenlight the movie. “When I was 9, my parents moved from Scarsdale, N.Y., to Wassenaar, Holland. I did not speak the language and felt desperate to make friends,” he explains. He “never got invited to parties.” In approving the movie, “my middle-school self took over.”’
For the love of God, this is one of the most pathetic excuses I’ve ever heard of a grown man making)
Forget it Jake, It’s Hollywood.
Forget it Jake, It’s Tinseltown.
😂😆🤣🤣🤣
I’m surprised that he didn’t blame
Gender Confusion or something like that
“you can’t really blame the hornets”
The same kind of dumbass as people not wanting to blame muggers for muggings.
Accurate
Green-lighting movies that smear conservatives, on the other hand...
yep, lesson learned: NEVER espouse ANYTHING that would upset ANY brutal dictator in the world for fear that some kind of retaliation might affect the bottom line ...
Haaarvaerd. Wut can you expect?
Cowardice in Hollywood on display.
Well just wait until they see the results of Paramount Skydance buying Warner Bros Discovery. CNN will get the CBS treatment, anybody that talks bad about Trump or anyone he doesn’t like will get fired.
All the right wing oligarchs buying up all the newspapers and media conglomerates will really hold them accountable for any negative talk
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.