by Steve Finefrock - [scriptwriter]

“THE STONE-FREE ZONE” might be a novel, a dissertation, an op-ed – about the lack of courage by so many conservatives now rushing for the tall grass, rats abandoning a ship they believe is taking on huge volumes of sea water. The radioactive, fissile materials emanating from the financial crisis have led growing numbers of one-time conservatives to run amok, amuck and away – from their own team.

If they’re wrong, will they be first to request tickets to Mac’s Inaugural?

Watch ‘em closely – there’s so much volatility in these poll numbers that anything can happen. Obama The One – OTO – has three layers of support: hard-core fanatics, overlaid by a thinner, semi-firm layer of mostly committed partisans, and the last and most volatile, newest layer of peekaboo supporters. Those Peekaboos are those who are peeking at his appeal, but not yet really convinced. Their wait-&-see is awaiting further news, and informed judgment, before entering the voting booth. What is dubbed the Bradley Effect mostly is the Peekaboo Pause – a pause that still might refresh the stakes in our favor.

Add the Peekaboos to the true uncommitted voters [less than 8%], and you have fissile material that can explode in a different direction than the Conventional Wisdom of the MSM is presently jamming into the body politic’s many orifices.

That’s the holistic and insightful truth to the ‘poll numbers’ which seem to have so many new enrollees in the Summer Soldiers’ Home – where lily-livered conservatives reside; when the going gets tough, they get going to the retirement home for onetime conservative combatants who’ve tired of the battle. They are the castrati conservatives – half-committed, half-courageous, now-castrated conservatives who’ve lost their stones. It’s mindful of a line by “Hillary Clinton” on SNL, as rendered by Amy Poehler:

I invite the media to grow a pair, and if you can’t, I’ll lend you mine.

My invitation to the castrati is to get back on the team, to Be True To Your School, abide by James Carville’s rule in his book, “Stickin’” – ya stick with your team until the clock is run out. Our clock runs out when the count is in on November 4th – or maybe early morning hours of November 5th, if it comes to that tiresome electoral repeat. Those true to this school of conservatism will not go castrati at the first sign [or second, or third] of resistance by opponents, or emerging imperfection of our nominees’ qualities. Liberals keep at it to the very end – why not us?

Tom Brokaw declared October 5th on Meet the Press that William Kristol of the Weekly Standard is considered to be, among conservatism’s college of cardinals, the equivalent of the Pope. It is Kristol who was the first advocate months ago for Sarah Palin as our VP designate. The Pope likes Palin. Why are others in the college, or the junior college [ju-co] it seems sometimes, going week-kneed?

That ju-co of conservatism includes now Chris Buckley, joining the prior castrati retirees in the Summer Soldiers’ Home: Kathleen Parker, David Brooks and David Frum, among other lesser lights in the light-weight division of conservative combat corps; even Peggy Noonan is getting close to the perimeter of the Summer Soldiers’ Home. They think Mac is not the same guy he was once, and Palin is just not intellectual enough. Is the Pope stupid? Are these ju-co castrati smarter than our Pope? One thing the Pope do know: OTO and Ego will be logarithms worse for America than even Palin alone would render to this, the Vital Nation.

Not that we need adhere to a doctrine of papal infallibility, but Kristol is no lightweight, no new player to the scene. Kristol knows the Peekaboos will slip off the top-layer of OTO’s appeal, once now-vague facts emerge about OTO and his EGO-partner, Biden. Their base layer is hard as seasoned concrete, but the top layer is soft as warm Jell-O. A few altered events will make for an altered event-horizon of considerably different perspective. So far, since the triumph of the “lipstick” distraction of OTO, a wee little Wall Street situation has put the campaign into rough waters.

Thus the castrati rats are fleeing like the castrated lemmings they are. The missing ‘emphasis’ and ‘context’ of Friday’s stock closing data is the rapid-rise at the closing bell, to a tiny final-tally loss for the day. You hardly see it in the graphic adjustments in so many renderings, but it’s evidence that the bottom may have been reached. In a few days, the daze of the haze of the duststorm of financial fury may fade, as the numbers rise. And suddenly, the public will be relieved – perhaps our own “Fissiles of October” as benefited JFK 46 years ago.

Despite the “Missiles of October” rendering the nation in panic, the resolution of the Cuban crisis came just in time for the sigh of relief to actually render JFK an increase of seats in the House, during off-year balloting. A rare event in the century for a party holding the White House, but the voters’ relief made him a winner, despite his deserving a rebuke.

Now, the fissile radioactivity of the stockmarket crisis may fade in this October demise, as that fissile material loses its political Geiger-counter rating. The sigh of relief, should it come within a week, will promptly render other simmering-yet-forgotten issues more relevant. Not that we’ll get a JFK-prize of gains in the House – only the MSM’s favored democrats receive that special treatment.

But Mac may get a boost when the booster-seat of the economic crisis is taken from under the baby-feet of the tenderfoot junior senator from Cook County. With that bit of tide shift, the castrati will be re-adjusting their testicular deficiency and proclaiming themselves supportive of the triumphant Mac and Saracudda.

Mac could still lose, but the volatility of the polling data, as detailed frequently by Karl Rove, can give a window of opportunity for Mac and Sarah. The dangers posed by a McCain presidency, for true members of the college of cardinals of conservatism, are to be outlined, as said earlier, on or after the IDES OF NOVEMBER. Doubtless, in a McCain victory environment, David Brooks, Kathleen Parker and Chris Buckley will be striving to check out of the cowards’ suite at the Summer Soldiers’ Home.

Instead, they should be jailed in that shameful institution’s Castrati Cell – for the rest of their political lifetimes. To borrow from Poehler, I’ll lend you a few stem cells from my cojones – or take a few stem cells from our Pope. He’s seen the Palin Power light, hasn’t yet snuffed out its bright beams of loyalty to McPalin. When you grow ‘em back, castratis, after a few years probation, then we’ll let you check out of the Summer Soldiers’ Home.

Meantime the home’s growing wing of Brooks-Parker-Buckley will be checking in quite a few initiates, who may yet wish they were ‘qualified’ to get tickets for the Inaugural. Sorry, Brooks-Parker-Buckley: only those who were continually, without interruption of faint of heart, True to Their School, will be receiving those tickets.

No inaugural invitations but to those who scorn and condemn the STONE FREE ZONE. No castrati need apply.

And if the tide never turns? Conservatism goes into post-defeat re-building? Who best to serve as foremen of the reconstruction zone of the college of cardinals than those who were unerringly, unfailingly, loyally True To Their School! In either post-election environment, No Castrati Need Apply. ExileStreet

copyright 2008 Steve Finefrock

Finefrock is founder of Hollywood Forum, a speaker-bureau and panel-discussion vehicle to “Bring the Potomac to the Palisades” on issues that overlap politics and culture with the Hollywood film-TV influence on such national concerns. His scripts have addressed politics [including a TV series pilot/bible package about state political combat, called "A State of the Union"], hazardous materials [from twelve years in emergency management, including six years managing FEMA's Superfund curriculum for hazmat], terrorism, equestrian reincarnation, serial murderer killing journalists in the nation’s capitol, and fantasy about time-wasters. Finefrock is proprietor of PhoneBooth: The Smallest Space in Hollywood…

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