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By Andrea Peyser
January 23, 2015

Leftists take cheap shots at 'American Sniper's real-life hero

“American Sniper’” is by far the best film I’ve seen in years. But don’t tell that to Hollywood’s leftist wusses who have tried to turn the public against Chris Kyle, a sharpshooter who selflessly saved American backsides.

The gunslinger put his own life on the line to protect the rights of all Americans, and that includes ungrateful Tinseltown meatheads who wield their constitutionally protected right to free speech to bring dishonor upon a bona fide hero.

The film tells the story of Navy SEAL Kyle, beautifully portrayed by Bradley Cooper. Kyle was nicknamed “The Devil of Ramadi” by Iraqi insurgents and “The Legend” by his fellow soldiers. He had more confirmed kills than any other sniper in history — 160 out of 255 probable kills. The film paints a portrait of a gung-ho warrior haunted after he’s forced to slay a mother and child who were armed with a rocket-propelled grenade.

After four tours in Iraq, he came home to his wife and two kids in Texas, was honorably discharged, became president of a security-training firm and wrote a best-selling memoir on which the movie was based. Then he was shot to death with a friend at a shooting range in 2013, allegedly by a former Marine whom he was helping to cope with post-traumatic stress disorder. He was 38 years old.

“American Sniper” moved me to tears.

In its first days of wide release, the film has shattered the January box-office record, taking in more than $107 million in ticket sales over the four-day holiday weekend. I saw it this week, unlike Penn State University professor Dennis Jett, who eviscerated the film in The New Republic, a reliably liberal magazine. Jett’s piece of hit journalism, about a movie that he could not be bothered to see, was, reportedly, a big hit among movers and shakers in the movie capital.

He claimed in the article that former President George W. Bush, along with those who voted for members of the government, shed more innocent Iraqi blood than the country’s late dictator Saddam Hussein. He quoted Lindy West, who wrote in The Guardian: “The real American Sniper was a hate-filled killer. Why are simplistic patriots treating him as a hero?”

The mindless piece has been passed among members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, who chose Oscar nominees, according to TheWrap entertainment Web site. (“Sniper” received six Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and Best Actor for Cooper. Clint Eastwood was snubbed for Best Director.)

“He seems like he may be a sociopath,” an academy member — who had not seen the film — told the site about Kyle, who wrote in his memoir that our enemies were “savages” and that his “only regret is that I didn’t kill more.”

This comes at a time when ISIS savages have publicly executed 13 teenage boys in Iraq. Jihadis of the Islamic State reportedly shot the youngsters with machine guns for violating Sharia law by watching a soccer match on TV between teams from Iraq and Jordan. But Kyle, whose job was to take out such subhumans, was obscenely slimed by actor Seth Rogen and by documentary filmmaker, and all-around imbecile, Michael Moore.

Rogen sent out a rude tweet in which he wrote that “Sniper” reminded him of the phony Nazi propaganda film in the 2009 flick “Inglourious Basterds.”

Caught being a jerk, Rogen backtracked, posting, “I just said something ‘kinda reminded’ me of something else. I actually liked American Sniper.”

But Moore outdid himself, tweeting that his uncle was killed by a sniper in World War II. “We were taught snipers were cowards. Will shoot u in the back. Snipers aren’t heroes. And invaders r worse.” He later insisted he was not referring to Kyle or to “American Sniper.”

But he blasted Eastwood on Facebook, writing, “Too bad Clint gets Vietnam and Iraq confused in his storytelling,’’ and that he “has his characters calling Iraqis ‘savages’ throughout the film.”

“Sniper” critics are “not fit to shine Chris Kyle’s combat boots,” Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice-presidential candidate, wrote on Facebook.

She’s right.

Hollywood morons and anti-“Sniper” bigots have never been more out of touch with the hearts and minds of the majority of Americans.

Rest in peace, Chief Petty Officer Kyle. Thank you for inspiring a great work of art.