The Major TD Fascination Factor is...

Rating: 8/10 (29 August 2006)

...not the plot, or anything of that sort!
It actually amazes me that everyone has missed it, so far.
There was once a former U.S. President named Ronald Reagan and a wee, mentally deranged lad named John Hinckley, Junior.
Well, this story rather lives on in infamy and will probably do so for a *very* long time.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/reagan/peopleevents/pande02.html
---- On March 30, 1981, John Hinckley Jr. set out to win actress Jodie Foster's heart. As "the greatest love offering in the history of the world," the 25-year-old attempted to assassinate Ronald Reagan outside the Washington Hilton hotel. Though flanked by administration members, police officers, and Secret Service agents, Reagan was shot under the left arm. The bullet malfunctioned and failed to explode on impact, seriously wounding but not killing Reagan.
In Hollywood, Hinckley saw Martin Scorsese's film "Taxi Driver" at least 15 times. A confirmed loner, he apparently identified strongly with the Robert DeNiro character Travis Bickle. In the film, Travis is infatuated with Cybill Shepherd's Betsy, a political campaign worker who rejects him after he takes her to see a porn film. To regain Betsy's attention, Bickle plans, but fails, to assassinate the candidate she works for. Bickle then shifts gears, obsessively devoting himself to protecting 12-year-old prostitute Iris, played by Foster. He decides to shoot Iris' pimp, thereby ensuring his status as a hero to Iris and the media.
Screenwriter Paul Schrader based his portrayal of Travis on Arthur Bremer, the would-be assassin of George Wallace whose diaries equate political assassination with celebrity and revenge against impotence and invisibility. Consciously or not, Hinckley began to emulate Bickle, accumulating an arsenal of weapons and fixating on Jodie Foster. Foster would not be his target, but his inspiration: To "rescue" her, he began to stalk Jimmy Carter during the 1979 presidential campaign. ----
So, this film is really more notable as a "fuel for the fire" (so to speak) than it is for anything else that it may have been intended.
Interestingly, it escaped condemnation, unlike so many other books, recordings and other such "bad influences" that are associated with bad deeds done by demented individuals by various organised (or not) groups that work so hard to attempt prosecution, or oppression of those with whom they do not agree, or find offensive.
Such is life. ;-)