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FROM THE PHONE BOOTH: The Smallest Space in  Hollywood

	FINEFROCK

Senior Moments for Mac:
Others Have Only JUNIOR Moments
by Steve Finefrock - Hollywood Forum [scriptwriter] 3/27/08

Aren’t they scrutinizing McCain for every little slip!  Seeking, searching, scrutinizing every blunder, every ‘narrative’ endorsement which they bring with them to the campaign, these referees, in the striped-shirts of supposed neutrality, to point out every stumble, every lapse, every hesitation to prove McCain is bursting with Senior Moments.

One such moment occurred overseas this past week, and was hardly worthy of a news factoid entry, but for this striped-shirt bias – and it was enhanced by his senatorial companion, Joe Lieberman, contrastingly correcting his gaffe. Many yaparama shows focused over the weekend on its existence, though it hardly merited such attention among the other memorable moments of the week’s news for review. But for their narrative – McCain is so-o-o old – it would have passed unheralded.



McCain may well have his senior moments, especially when it comes to economics – a subject not understood by many Americans, especially by the striped-shirts – and maybe even foreign policy [the source of this week’s Lieberman-corrected detour].  All his senior moments to date, and yet to come, will compare like a toothpick to a burning Manhattan tower when considering all the Junior Moments to come from this band of desperate freshmen seeking the Oval Office.

As cleverly worded before, we have two choices this November: Will Mac’s Oval Team bring an adult Oval Team with experience of senior skills to the Oval Office, or will the sophomore pair offered by the dems give us another set of Oval Teens setting policy?  Clinton already imbedded pizza cheese into the Oval Office rug with his clan of kids – will Hillary’s honchos be less sophomoric?  Then, the category was more like freshmen in a college dorm, gleeful at being in the big, powerful White House.



Now Hillary’s crowd is more like sophomores, at best juniors when handling large responsibilities. Worse yet is Barack’s all-freshmen, all-the-time batch of boneheads – despite their excellent campaign machinery. As the holy master himself, they are an untested, unproven lot of enthusiastic freshmen and sophomores. Raw meat for Al Quaeda, and Hamas, and even a French premiere or two.



As Hillary claimed she’d ducked for cover on a First Lady trip, others minimized the reported danger, including an accompanying comedy ‘talent’ Sinbad on that trip, who remembered no such danger. Maybe this memory problem needs the kind of scrutiny given Mac – a freshman memory being promoted to a senior event, recorded in her sophomoric memory, desperate for validation as an adult deserving center stage in The Oval.



That’s the ‘terrain walk’ for McCain to master.  Any military mind knows to examine the geography which can’t be altered, doing so before the battle is engaged. And that the first casualty of any contest is the plan, so well-manicured in the quiet of the planning councils well before the enemy, and Fate, takes its unsympathetic swipe at the best laid plans.  This terrain is about his ‘natural constituency’ turning against him – that being the media, which once included the NY Times [which he found ‘disappointing’ on the lobbyist scandal claim].



Now it’s Mac’s turn in the barrel – know the joke? Raunchy, but useful – and those who had been handing him cool drinks and gentle massages from their media podiums will soon be leading the howling pack of media wolves.  Quietly and gently at first, such as this week’s matter-of-fact probing on the yaparamas, but rising to a campaign-ripping crescendo.



And his answer? Or that of his campaign, the more suitable instrument?



Better a senior moment here and there which can be corrected promptly, than a string of likely junior, and sophomore, moments which may be as uncorrectable as that junior moment at the Bay of Pigs.  And that little junior moment of not watching Cuba the second time, and creating the Missiles of October [long before a “Maalox Moment” came into the lexicon]. Or Vietnam, by that junior’s older VP taking the reins with no useful experience at executive and military matters.



Many a Junior Moment, and Sophomore Moment as well, from shining stars who wanted to be the Tsar of American leadership, often bringing their Oval Teens into the inner sanctum, and proving P.J. O’Rourke’s dictum: giving money and power to politicians is like giving car keys and liquor to teenage boys. Or girls [er, sorry, that’s ‘women’ – and one may not allude to a black man, even a post-racial one, as a boy].



We have the choice in November, no matter who wins the DNC’s current contested contest – an Oval Team of adults, albeit with a senior moment here and there by the CIC himself, versus another dormful of Oval Teens, promising few senior skills and providing much to regret in endless junior and sophomore moments.



Can’t you see the TV ad now, if Mac has the cojones to so engage the DNC? Oval Office phone rings, a wee tiny voice of a little girl or boy answers “Hello” and then peeking over the massive desk is junior actor.  Screen splits, same scene in second half, phone rings, a booming if raspy voice of an adult answers, “Hello” – and an adult appears, the senator himself, once tested by the fires of that carrier flightdeck explosion. [Maybe fade to shots of him jumping from his fighter onto the flame-drenched deck] And his very adult voice says, “This is the President, I’m on it …” as in the other scene, the childish voice whimpers, “Uh, let me get back to you”!



Maybe a skit for SNL?  They’ve been amazingly helpful so far, so who knows? But, they’re full of Oval Teen enthusiasts, so don’t expect it from them.  Or even from Fox News’ “Half Hour News Hour” – for it went off the air before given a chance, due to the kind of lacking commitment which many conservatives exhibit when dealing with the culture.



That’s one suggestion – maybe a poster akin to the SNL-style skit, with a variation on Carville’s famous 1992 dictum, this one proclaiming “It’s the junior moments, Stupid”…. Or, make that Stupid Moments, surely to come in quantity, if it comes to pass that the Oval Teens enter the corridors of power. ExileStreet

copyright 2008 Steve Finefrock

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