Not at all. The scars only widen his mouth, the red lipstick is what forms it into a definate smile. And since we still don’t know where or how he came by them, we can’t say for certain that they exist strictly for his Joker persona.

More to the point: If he DID exist and was operating at the same level and ‘goal’ before Batman came about… why exactly is Gotham not ALREADY a smoldering crater back in Begins?

Insofar as the scars (which are clearly and obviously intended to elongate his smile in a hideous fashion) are, as you admitted, a long time healed, and essentially have no meaning without the clown make-up, that’s a false conclusion.

No, because we’re talking about The Joker and not whoever this nut was BEFORE he “became” The Joker. Those scars have obviously been healed for awhile, and it takes time to learn all those bomb-making and demolition skills, so it’s reasonable to assume that he’s been a wandering nutcase for quite some time before he put his makeup on (I wonder if we’re supposed to assume that he and maybe other future villians started as Arkham inmates who got loose during the prison-break at the end of Batman Begins…) So, duh, of course this guy was already off his gourd. But THE JOKER - the guy with the makeup and the anarchy hangup who’s obsessed with Batman - that persona came into being because whoever he really is/was saw Batman and had some kind of perverse “revelation” about what to do with his life.

Yes, Batman has to exist for the Joker to challenge him, but that’s not exactly an innovative point.

For Batman to truly beget the Joker you would have to make the argument that the Joker would have been a reasonably law-abiding citizen if Batman had never showed up.

You can choose to believe that, certainly, but I don’t buy it, and there’s far more there to make the opposite case, in my opinion.

We will have to agree to disagree on this.

The analogue is made to the Bush administration’s tactics nearly the last seven years, and whether they ‘created more
terrorists’. Interestingly the critics are almost uniformly opposed to very tactic at every level. We have to give them
attorneys even though they don’t believe in the legitimacy of secular laws. We have to give them Geneva Convention protections; even their behavior contradicts the conditions for them. The examples of Daniel Pearl, Nicholas Berg, Paul Johnson, ;his was the real life version of the attempted decapitation at the climax of the “Kingdom”, and the butchery of Tucker, Menchaca & Green are proof of that. When they are released, we have to listen to their attorneys rationalize their atrocities, based on some slight.We must let them pronounce Miranda warnings, so we can’t find out what their brethren are going to do next. We must engage them only in Afghanistan, even though they were active in 60 countries before them; and that location wasn’t sacred ground until 1979. Iraq is a distraction, even though the people, and the terrain have proven to be much more hospitable to our message. We have to a court order in order to intercept their international communications; even though we can’t know who to intercept unless we cast a wide net. We must draft everyone, although the protesters are almost invariably the ones who would put obstacles in the way of any renewed selective service. That is just some of
the list of charges put forth against George W. Bush in the indictment for war crimes, genocide, murder as Bugliosi’s
fevered rants suggests.

As usual, whenever politics enter the discussion from either side, there is a willful misreading of what actually occurs in the movie.

****SPOILER ALERT****

When Batman tries to torture the Joker into telling him where Rachel and Dent were, not only does the Joker enjoy it, but it results in him giving misleading information and breaking out prison. When Dent threatens to kill one of the Joker’s men, Batman tells him that he can’t be seen doing something like that because it would erode his moral authority. Batman creates the surveillance system, but realizes the potential for misuse and destroys it. He gives up his power and allows himself to become a villain. He realizes that he lives completely outside the law and that is why ordinary people should look at someone like Dent in order to be inspired.

*****END SPOILERS******

In the end, the triumph of The Dark Knight is its ability to encompass many different aspects of good vs. evil, put it in a modern context, and then let the viewer decide how they feel. Are there references to the post 9/11 world and the need to fight terror? Absolutely. But to say that this is the only message in the film, and that Batman is somehow the incarnation of George Bush on film is a disservice to the complexity and brilliance of the film.