Before Sarah, There Was Ainsley: Legs & Peg on “West Wing”

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.

President Barack O’Bartlet: Aaron Sorkin Returns

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.

“The Full Monty Palin” Walsh’s World of Media Mendacity – DUH!

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…

When “Putin Happens”: What Will You Do, OTO?

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:

“Maverick” Views On Blankley’s EuroSocialists

by Steve Finefrock - [scriptwriter]

James Garner James Garner played zip-gun with my mother’s playgroup when he visited Shawnee, his periodic refuge from the juvenile authorities in his native Norman, Oklahoma. One of the great asses of Hollywood – for his ego as much as his leftwing views – jump-started his career playing TV’s famous “Maverick” before moving to film, and back to TV as a detective with only semi-macho inclinations.

One of his forays into movie near-stardom was as Charlie Madison, Lt. Commander of dog-robber midnight requisitioning for his Navy admiral in wartime London. Ramping up for D-Day led him into the sheets of British babe Emily Barham, played by Julie Andrews at the rise of her stardom, in “The Americanization of Emily” – written by that lefty American doubter, Paddy Chayefsky.

“A Tale of Two Verities – NOT”: Fact Checking, Left v. Right

by Steve Finefrock - [scriptwriter]

Two ‘facts’ emerged in this past week, one so good it had to be reported, and so useful to the left that the ‘kill him’ outburst at a Palin rally got maximum MSM coverage. Wee tiny problem: IT DIDN’T HAPPEN.

At least according to all authorities seeking prosecutorial insight – though the original reporter, and his ever-loyal publication, insists to this moment on the story’s validity.

The other ‘fact’ was a report on one website [as an ‘exclusive’ in caps] and cited by a second one, claiming a McCain-Palin campaign bus [without the candidates aboard] was blasted by paintballs and also had a window shot out by a .22 caliber bullet.

“Meet the McCains”: Mac’s Political Fockers

by Steve Finefrock - [scriptwriter]

Mac is thinking a lot more like his fellow republicans these days – much as they did so often when he was the Maverick in Chief in the Senate conservative cloakroom.

Today’s McCain Cloakroom is bursting with such luminaries as Colin Powell, Christopher Buckley, Peggy Noonan, David Gergen, David Brooks, David Frum, Kathleen Parker, George Will, Christopher Hitchens and Andrew Sullivan. These are but a few of my least favorite beings of betrayal, who are all anxious to be liked by ‘Them’ on the left. They are abandoning the Conservative Cause in order to preserve their neutrality – or as Parker asserted to Chris Matthews, their ‘credibility’ – in the future.

Rabid Response Teams: “Professor” v. “Plumber”

by Steve Finefrock - [scriptwriter]

“The only constant in the universe is the bureaucratic mentality” proclaimed Dr. McCoy in a ‘Star Trek” movie. Imagine, that there’d be some domestic politics in sci-fi dialogue – though not the first. Another film featured the notion that the reason Kirk would best be the candidate to approach his arch-enemies, the Klingons, was parallel to that old Vulcan aphorism: “Only Nixon can go to China”!

Rim-shot, please, maestro.

Now we see the shortest measurable time-span in the political universe of the mainstream media [MSM]: that between Joe the Plumber becoming known to the MSM and when they would investigate his lifestyle, work habits and his tax records.

Mac Hits Some Triples: “We can win this thing…”

by Steve Finefrock - [scriptwriter]

One Hollywood conservative reassured a fellow Jewish Republican after the convention, “We can win this thing…” Since that e-mail, things have gone up and down, with Mac briefly ahead. Then a little stock market/housing-bubble matter turned things down. Last night, Mac did his best yet in the debates, his last-chance saloon to make some points. No homers, certainly no grand-slam, but several triples, and no bunts. Good enough to beat the Dodgers’ deal the same hump-day evening.

Right now, the tides of man are cycling against Mac. And any serious Vegas oddsmaker would make it at least 5-3 for OTO, that again being Obama The One. That very night, Leno’s pre-debate taping noted the fires in the LA area were not regarded as by most Americans: When an LA citizen sees a burning bush, he thinks Obama is about to give a speech!

A Strong LEFT Arm: Rendell’s Racist Rendering

by Steve Finefrock - [scriptwriter]

Ed Rendell’s stirring the pot. It’s juicy grist for the mill of a potentially revealing and elucidating skit at Saturday Night Live. But SNL won’t touch it – they are part of the media ‘chauffeur’ brigade, working hard to get Barack “The Messiah” Obama elected. Anyone who don’t vote fer OTO [Obama The One] is a RACIST – no, make that RACIST.

A skit for SNL might be a press conference, or an ‘insider’ strategy session at OTO’s HQ, as one by one the list is marked on a white-board [or, blackboard?] of the things that just-can’t-be-said by McCain or Palin. Make fun of his ears? NO, RACIST, would be some staffer reply. Raise the issue of his medical records still kept unavailable? NO, RACIST, would be another staffer’s insistent branding of McCain for mentioning such standard fare.