Home | Notes
Contributors
Archives | Search
Links | About
contact:
editor@ExileStreet.com
..........

Ralph Peters
Latest

Looking for Trouble: Adventures in a Broken World
Ralph Peters

..........

Julia Gorin

Clintonisms
by Julia Gorin

..........

Wounded Warrior
Please Help Those
Who Protect Us

..........

Burt Prelutsky

The Secret of Their
Success
by Burt Prelutsky
..........

.........

Burt Prelutsky

Conservatives Are From Mars, Liberals Are From San Francisco
by Burt Prelutsky
..........

..........

FROM THE PHONE BOOTH: The Smallest Space in  Hollywood

	FINEFROCK

Thermopylae, 2008
‘300’ FredHeads On The Wall
by Steve Finefrock - Hollywood Forum [scriptwriter] 7/25/07

Xerxes is coming to this critical place, comprised of several regiments: the Media, the left, the DNC and a few GOPsters for a while as well.  The sky will darken with their arrows of piercing criticism and attacks with lances and beasts of monstrous construction will challenge Fred Thompson’s growing band of merry men and women as they undertake the most Quixotic campaign in modern history.  Or at least by a serious candidate, certain unmentionable perennials not counting.
 
Not in modern American history has an ex-senator made it to the presidency.  Only twice has a sitting senator succeeded, the last being JFK-LBJ in the 1960 squeaker that led us to Vietnam, the Great Society and the trouncing four years later of Goldwater [himself also a sitting senator].  The data reveals we prefer a Chief Executive who’s been a chief executive: governors govern this state of affairs.  TR, Wilson, FDR, Carter, Reagan, Clinton and Dubya are the best-known of the trendline, who ascended directly from a statehouse, or had a brief hiatus [e.g., Reagan].  Even the losing party’s nominee was more often a governor than any other category, including sitting senator.

In this current mix of aspirants, there’s Romney who’s helmed a state, and a near-governor in Rudy, who’s mayor duties of the largest city is equivalent to leading most states, especially since the United Nations is located in his backyard.  Richardson on the dems’ side meets this historical measure, but he’s a distant wannabee, surpassed by two sitting senators who are typical one-of-a-hundred seekers of that executive flame – neither with any responsibility other than overseeing a senate staff.  Oh, wait, Hill did do that health thing, didn’t she?
 
And what a rousing success that was, eh!
 
Note the missing senator?  McCain is down and out, if not yet gotten the word – he’s like the Black Knight in Monty Python, a political amputee, blood pumping onto the ground and he’s still claiming full-strength as the others pass him by.  Thankfully, this psychotic senator won’t have a chance to upstage Howard Dean’s famed “I’ve got a scream” performance.  
 
Into this comes Fred Thompson, a former senator, with no executive cred, serving only six years in the Senate, and about to lead the pack without even joining the race. When he joins, the Xerxes’ regiments will descend.  A potful of JV mistakes will happen, as a junior-varsity entrant has to train and rehearse for a Superbowl performance that includes the nastiest full-body cavity-search anyone ever can know.  No candidate has ever been prepared for what befalls the campaign when the nomination is nearing, or even appearing to be a practical possibility.
 
But Fred’s head and heart gives heart to FredHeads, growing into company strength, maybe soon battalion, all green as the Enterprise crew in Star Trek II – Wrath of Khan.
 
Thompson exhibits a trait noted famously by Oliver Wendell Holmes, on examining a rising star in the dem world – Second-rate mind, first-rate temperament, he pronounced on FDR.  It’s the temperament, stupid – not the ‘cred’ of senate bills and floor debate.  While Fred was one of a hundred, and never has been one-of-one as an executive, he do talk good.
 
And that’s his only strength to date, but it is as perfectly-suited to the thirst as Gatorade at halftime.  He’s not Reagan, nor even Reagan-esque.  But his beliefs are near-Reagan, and his certainty of thought and coolness of delivery when all those about him are grasping for attention make him the likely nominee, and one who can coolly and classily dissect the stupidities of Hill or Barack or John.  Oh, to take a whack at Edwards!  That would be engaging in a fight with an unarmed man, or with an unarmed first-term senator, or a second-term healthcare czarina.
 
The road ahead will be akin to “300” – the onslaught has begun, the NYT and its cousins in the MSM have begun the slamming.  Many so-called feminists, such as Juan Williams, don’t even blush apologetically when branding Thompson’s spouse as a trophy wife.  They have no blush-glands there on Xerxes’ side of the battle.  The sky is already darkening with their arrows of hate, half-truths, innuendo and disdain.  Hill and the DNC instinctively know how devastating Fred might be in a debate.  And on the stump.  And kissing babies.
 
In the end, Fred may be the Trophy President: What we’ve been wanting to put on the national mantle for some time.  Dubya almost earned that sanctified place, but fumbled, though history may yet be kind – hopefully, by my reckoning.  He can be in life what he has been cast to be in TV: Important Person, in whom we Trust Our Lives. And Speaks Our Beloved Beliefs.  That’s more than a mere TV show, or periodic character role in a movie, can convey.  Fred brought that star-quality to his casting opportunity – his first role was playing HIMSELF.  No one like him could be found, so the director said, Hey Fred wanna play the hero, SINCE YOU WERE THE HERO OF THIS STORY IN THE FIRST PLACE.
 
From staffer on the Watergate Senate select committee – where he’s rumored to coin the phrase used by his boss, What did the president know, and when did he know it – to private practice and the pardon-scandal assist leading to the first movie, then to the Senate via his red pickup truck, and a bit o’ lobbying along the way.  Now, he’s the rising star, to hopefully oppose the dems’ rising czarina.
 
For the lobbying ‘accusation’ it is important to know that the first lobbyist in American history was a highly honorable man, rich from a printing business, who represented the suffering colonies before Parliament, exercising the right to “petition the government for redress of grievances” that predated its incarnation as the sixth-clause of the First Amendment.  He was Benjamin Franklin, who succeeded briefly in mitigating Parliament’s oppression.  Lobbying, and campaign contributions, come under that orphaned sixth-clause, and that is my only major reservation for Fred’s heading our ticket.  His taint is not from a trophy wife, or lobbying for a Latin American scoundrel, but embracing CFR – McCain-Feingold’s campaign finance reform that is at the heart of McCain’s lengthy difficulties with the GOP’s core constituency.
 
If Fred declares his devotion to the example of Franklin, his Fred-Head battalion will grow to a regiment, then a full army, ultimately an Army Group – which when meeting that sun-blocking cloud of Xerxes’ arrows, will be capable to meet that recent film’s accurate character’s ancient declaration, We’ll fight in the dark.
 
In the meantime, sharpen our swords, hammer out our shields, toughen our sinews and practice our skills – Xerxes is coming, with hordes of political whores who have no honor and no sense of what this nation is about.  Fortunately, there’s a Leonidas – Greek for Lion’s Son – with a baritone voice and a belief combined with ability of expression which will indeed sustain this junior-varsity team.  Facing the Wrath of Hillary, or of Obama, and the wrathful team behind them: Rahm, Nancy, Harry, Howard, et al.
 
It’s looking like I’m a FredHead – YEP!  
 
Rudy will do nicely, and even Mitt – no problem if either gets the nomination.  But Rudy may not make it past a few JV mistakes himself; and one of my “posse” characterized Mitt as “too sparkly” to be taken seriously.  The hungering thirst for political GatorAde, to slake our dry throats and rejuvenate us against the juvenile left, with articulation and motivation, makes Fred the likely nominee.  Who can fight in the dark of their arrows, give comfort and aid to our side, and expressly point their side’s giving so much aid and comfort to our nation’s enemies, and enemas.
 
Just answer that CFR question, Fred.  We don’t need no stinking CFR no more.  Ben Franklin’s tears still fill the nation’s waterways when that law was passed, and confirmed by SCOTUS.  As Rudy assures us about judges, you need to assure potential FredHeads that the orphan clause of the First Amendment is as important as the other five clauses.  If I can’t use every means at my disposal, and in my bank account, to throw out the rascal who’s refusing to address my grievances, then the sixth-clause is virtually nullified.
 
So, now let the arrows fly high.  The junior-varsity team has a lot to learn, on a steep learning-curve.  But, no one else has engaged in a national campaign before, as the lead possibility, save for Edwards.  It’s an open field.  Let the best expression of our beliefs and hopes for the nation be the litmus test – and that test Fred wins hands down.  He is his own casting department, and is cast perfectly for the role.  
 
Don’t you just relish him taking down the czarina?  A movie star takes on the power czarina!  In that setting, the czarina may have her own “I have a screaming fit and throw a lamp at the Secret Service agent” moment.  That match, again, will be one of engaging a battle of wits with an unarmed man, or woman.  
 
Hillary is harmed and dangerous, an angry feminista who’s known in many backrooms as a volcanic rage-aholic.  When she’s really challenged – which to date she’s not been, wearing a Kevlar vest as big as Dallas – she’ll blow like an overheated steam boiler.
 
And Fred-Heads’ hero will have done that job.  For us. Our Party.  And America ExileStreet

copyright 2007 Steve Finefrock

§