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KEVIN COSTNER has waded into the debate about controversial new movie DEATH OF A PRESIDENT, insisting British director GABRIEL RANGE failed to consider how GEORGE W BUSH's family would react to scenes of the US President being assassinated. The DANCES WITH WOLVES star was caught up in the controversy at the Toronto Film Festival in Canada at the weekend (09-10SEP06), where he premiered his new film, THE GUARDIAN, alongside the screening of Death of A President. Movie fans reportedly sat in stunned silence at the end of Range's screening, which featured doctored images of Bush getting shot, and Costner, who wasn't in the audience, isn't happy with what he's heard about the film. He says, "It's awfully hard if you're his children, his wife, his mother, his dad; there's a certain thing we can't lose as human beings, which is empathy for maybe the hardest job in the world. "Whether we think it's being performed right or not we can't, like, wish... or think that's even cute."

Mr. Costner's concern arises from a sense of human decency that is all too absent from the hardcore Bush haters on the left.