by Steve Finefrock – [scriptwriter]

MEMO TO DAVID E. KELLEY: There be some juicy story lines brewing in the braying, prancing, pretension-rich Congress this week, as Big Three auto execs arrive to testify before the pretenders-to-honesty which comprise our political ass, er, class, in the national capitol. Once it was tobacco executives given the third-degree, more recently oil executives summoned to be raked over the morality-coals of Congress, and now CEOs of auto companies, arriving in Gulfstream-4 executive jets. It positively enraged Whoopi, whose neighborhood in entertainment drips with G-4s and G-3s and Boeing Executive jets. Variety’s periodic “V-Life” lifestyle issue treated that subject once, delineating who the ‘jet rich’ were inside the royal realm of Hollywood.

The most hypocritical crowd on the planet Earth are the lying, scheming weasels on the floor of the House and Senate who tamper with the Constitution daily. “Each House shall keep a Journal of its Proceedings” states the clear language of Article I, section 5, clause 3, “and from time to time publish the same, excepting such Parts as may in their Judgment require Secrecy.” Hmmmm, did ya ever hear of the unanimous consent requested frequently, regularly, and without failure to achieve approval for a Member to exercise his/her right to “revise and extend my remarks”? (more…)

by Steve Finefrock – [scriptwriter]

Emergency legislation was required the summer of ’32, so the president could implement a vital bank holiday – the banks were collapsing, and reorganization under federal supervision was the agreed and only solution. The legislation never came – the banks burned from the Summer of ’32 until inaugural day the following March.

Today much is being made of the supposed parallels between Obama The One [OTO] and JFK, and FDR, and anyone the dems adore and venerate. “Not since the Great Depression” was invoked by OTO and his legions of loons so much it’s a meme – a part of our memory, one step above a mere mantra. Indeed, as OTO refuses to assist the current crisis until his inaugural day, it is mindful of FDR’s allowing the banks to burn until he took office. (more…)

by Steve Finefrock – [scriptwriter]

While failure is an orphan, and success has a hundred fathers, an electoral orphan can be claimed by many who know just the cure for the little feller’s afflictions. Conservatives are not cast out of the political tent by this November’s verdict. We’re just wounded by self-inflicted idiocies, and idiots, and ids. Let us bleed a while, then we get busy re-defining, re-branding, re-advancing our beliefs. Tell ‘em what we believe, and why, and how it will correct what will be a long list of requisite corrections by arrival of the next cycle of campaigning.

All the data shows a slight increase today of self-identifying conservatives, over the data for 2004. There is a solid core of classic conservative believers who were simply disappointed, and feeling dissed in general, by their ‘leaders’ – without abandoning their dearly held desire for less government, but competent government. (more…)

by Steve Finefrock – [scriptwriter]

“It’s a guy” blurts King Marchand’s bodyguard, Squash, played by macho-domo pre-NFL mountain-with-legs Alex Karras in “Victor Victoria” at the revelatory moment. Julie Andrews’ 1982 turn as a woman in 1930’s Paris pretending to be a man pretending to be a woman was part of Turner Classic Movies’ choice of pre-election Sunday countdown cinematic offerings. “The Mortal Storm” and “All the President’s Men” comprised the finale of this weekend trifecta of politically-themed films.

“Mortal Storm” regards the moral choices in Germany during Nazi emergence, and of course “ATPM” reminds us of the evil Nixon presidency. (more…)

by Steve Finefrock – [scriptwriter]

Did your stomach tie itself into knots? Clammy hands? Trembling leg on the accelerator pedal? Tense neck muscles as you tried to check the outside mirror? Were these but a few of the least favorite things gripping your body and distracting your mind – the first time you drove a car into busy, dense interstate traffic?

Or tried parallel parking? An emergency stop? A car suddenly changing lanes into yours, or one ahead suddenly locking its brakes and fishtailing? Think of all these paralyzing experiences, the first time, or even the first several times they descended upon your tenderfoot driving experience.

Then, consider how less aggravating such events are today – (more…)

by Steve Finefrock – [scriptwriter]
Aaron Altman, frustrated news team wannabee on “Broadcast News” labels his competitor for female affection, as the Devil. How can you say that, Aaron’s shiksa broadcast babe requires of him. It’s a great line, worthy of today’s examination:

AARON: What do you think the Devil is going to look like if he’s around? Nobody is going to be taken in if he has a long, red, pointy tail. No. I’m semi-serious here. He will look attractive, and he will be nice, and helpful. And he will get a job where he influences a great God-fearing nation and he will never do an evil thing… he will just bit by little bit lower standards where they are important. Just coax along flash over substance… Just a tiny bit. And he will talk about all of us really being salesmen. [pause] And he’ll get all the great women. (more…)

by Steve Finefrock – [scriptwriter]

A conservative babe with legs and blonde locks entered NBC’s wonderful world of “West Wing” on November 1, 2000 – not in time to ‘educate’ the public on the possibility of a strong traditional woman with feminine allure also being politically astute, and especially not to the advantage of Dubya’s expected [if contested] ascension a few days hence. Aaron Sorkin’s pen answered the first “WW” season flood of criticism by conservatives, giving a hint of what would emerge almost exactly eight years later. Thanks to noble transcriptionists of “WW” episodes available on line, some of the dialogue introducing Ainsley “Palin” Hayes is ready for the examination by those who might dare to remember. (more…)

by Steve Finefrock – [scriptwriter]

BRAVO cable channel is adding its heft to OTO’s rise to dominance – or their hope for such achievement. Obama The One – OTO – long ago triggered a recently deceased conservative producer friend’s observation, “Sorkin’s getting his election, it’s going just like a script he’d write for ‘West Wing’!” Without any schedule in any printed medium I noticed for the afternoon timeslots, up popped President Jeb Bartlet in a back-to-back continually running re-issue of “West Wing” on BRAVO – and irony of ironies is it not, that it comes a week before election of OTO?

Or so they hope – in any case, the propaganda campaign that is the media tingly-leg assist to OTO is now amplified by dusting off old “WW” episodes in time to remind us: LIBERALS ARE STRONG if given power. (more…)

by Steve Finefrock – [scriptwriter]

Field Marshall Bernard Law Montgomery began every day with a full-course English breakfast – a gut-filler that puts to shame the biggest feed at Denny’s Grand Slam buffet. Stories of his early morning feast, even on the eve of battle in the North Africa desert, led to the common expression, “Give me the Full Monty” at restaurants in Britain. Thus the equivalent to our American “full nine yards” – the full-treatment, all ya got, don’t hold back. No lesser meal would do for a Monty dinner guest.

In media stories, there’s ‘coverage” of the event(s), the basic, minimal treatment of a story, usually a single column headline and usually ‘below the fold’ or late in the newscast ‘budget’ presented to the audience… (more…)

by Steve Finefrock – [scriptwriter]

Remember those American Express travelers cheque ads years ago? A crisis was presented for a family away from home, their wallet stolen, the crisis overwhelming their vacation future, when stepped up Karl Malden. Like a fedora-donning yoda, Malden in his trench-coat – a la his recent TV detective role in “Streets of San Francisco” [with young co-star, Michael Douglas] – offered the audience a wise question, as he stared into the camera, coming into the viewers’ living rooms with an intimacy only a beloved TV character can generate:

What would YOU do?

The solution? American Express travelers’ cheques, of course! The on-screen logo coda insisted, “Don’t leave home without it” – and the next commercial racked up for viewing.  This piece of commercial thirty-second entertainment was a mainstay of primetime TV for years, subjecting Malden to many a skit parodying his ad by “The Tonight Show” with Johnny Carson in face putty to replicate Malden’s schnozz.

If the RNC were half as clever as it needs to be, some variation of this ad – or drawing on a more recent, salient version – would be generated in a commercial to ring true, asking Obama The One [OTO] the crucial question: (more…)