Director Oliver Stone says Obama is a 'snake'

Maria Puente | USA TODAY

Looks like director Oliver Stone is definitely off the White House invite list: He says the current occupant is a "snake."

He said this in Tokyo on Monday at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan while promoting his 10-part documentary series for Showtime called The Untold History of the United States, which argues, among other things, that it's a "myth" that the United States had to drop atomic bombs on Japan to win World War II.

Stone has ripped Obama before, including in the book that accompanies the series. He said last year that Obama has too often mimicked Republican predecessor George W. Bush, and this year, he and historian Peter Kuznick argued in USA TODAY that Obama has backed away from his promises to diminish the American "empire."

Lately, Stone is peeved at the POTUS for backing the NSA spying-on-Americans programs and for criticizing leaker-in-chief Edward Snowden. Stone said Snowden is a "hero" last month.

"Obama is a snake," Stone told the journalists in Tokyo. "He's a snake. And we have to turn on him."

Stone said Snowden sacrificed himself for the good of the country and praised Russia for giving Snowden asylum. "I think (Russian President Vladimir) Putin did the right thing, and I'm proud of him for doing it," he said. "We need more countries to stand up to the U.S."

Stone, who's as famous for his liberal politics as his unconventional takes on American presidents in his movies (JFK, Nixon, W), is all about standing up to the U.S.; in fact, he advised Japan to "disassociate" itself from its defense agreement with the United States and instead get closer to China.

Stone tweeted that reports of his remarks in Stars and Stripes should be "taken with a grain of salt" because the daily that covers the military is "our Empire's foreign base beat sheet." Still, an earlier tweet displayed his exasperation with Obama, who is regularly excoriated as a liberal and a socialist by his critics on the right.

"Look please at Obama's quote on Korea to see how crazy his sense of history has become," Stone tweeted, linking to an article describing an Obama speech in South Korea as the "most militaristic" of his presidency.