You can’t help but wonder what prompted the British to make a TV movie about assassinating Pres. Bush. One thing’s for sure: such a film could never be made in the land of the free and the home of the brave.

The program, to be aired Oct. 9, uses actors and digital manipulation of real footage to show a fictional account of Bush being gunned down after delivering a speech in Chicago, Peter Dale, the head of More4, told a news conference. More4 is the digital offshoot of Britain’s Channel 4.

“Death of a President,” which will first be shown this month at the Toronto Film Festival, in September, focuses on all those linked to the pretend crime — including nearby antiwar protesters, suspects, Secret Service guards and investigators, Dale said.

The White House declined to comment on the network’s announcement, saying it would not dignify the program with a response.

Plus, they couldn’t think of anything.

“It’s an extraordinarily gripping and powerful piece of work, a drama constructed like a documentary that looks back at the assassination of George Bush as the starting point for a very gripping detective story,” Dale told reporters. “It’s a pointed political examination of what the war on terror did to the American body politic.”

I wonder if it will be banned in this country.