Crossposted from News From the Front.
Warning: NSFW Langage after the jump.
Via New York Magazine:
According to multiple Fox sources, Ailes has issued a new directive to his staff: He wants the faces associated with the election off the air — for now. For Karl Rove and Dick Morris — a pair of pundits perhaps most closely aligned with Fox’s anti-Obama campaign — Ailes’s orders mean new rules. Ailes’s deputy, Fox News programming chief Bill Shine, has sent out orders mandating that producers must get permission before booking Rove or Morris. Both pundits made several appearances in the days after the election, but their visibility on the network has dropped markedly. Inside Fox News, Morris’s Romney boosterism and reality-denying predictions became a punch line. At a rehearsal on the Saturday before the election, according to a source, anchor Megyn Kelly chuckled when she relayed to colleagues what someone had told her: “I really like Dick Morris. He’s always wrong but he makes me feel good.”
A Fox spokesperson confirmed the new booking rules for Rove and Morris, and explained that Shine’s message was “the election’s over.
”
INT. BAR-VERY LATE NIGHT.
The bar is a small hole in the wall joint in Brooklyn, festooned with cheap Xmas decorations. The only ones left are THE BARTENDER (Late forties. With a beard and a who-gives-a-shit demeanor.) and his customers, KARL ROVE and DICK MORRIS who are nursing scotches.
KARL ROVE:
Fuck him!
DICK MORRIS
: Who?
KARL ROVE
: Alies.
DICK MORRIS:
Oh…Yeah, fuck him!
KARL ROVE:
After all I’ve done for him, he kicks me off his network like I’m that apocalyptic cowbell ringer, Glenn Beck.
DICK MORRIS
Over Ohio.
KARL ROVE
: Over motherfucking Ohio! Because I had the fucking insolence to suggest that maybe…maybe they might be calling it early?
DICK MORRIS
Like they’d know…
KARL ROVE
: I was running my first senate campaign while he was still stuck in Philadelphia lining up coke and whores for Mike Douglas.
DICK MORRIS
: Exactly. Wait? Mike Douglas did coke?
KARL ROVE
: To hear him tell it.
Pause.
KARL ROVE
: You good for money?
DICK MORRIS:
Eh. Trump tried to hook me up with a job at Macy’s playing Santa.
KARL ROVE:
How’d that go.
Beat.
DICK MORRIS
: They said my voice was scaring the children.
KARL ROVE
: Any chance of making nice with the Clintons?
DICK MORRIS
: Oh, those bridges are good and burnt, my friend. I just got a Christmas card from Bill. You know what it said?
(Beat.)
Happy Holidays. Guess what? I got more than my toes sucked and I still kept my job. Ha, ha, ha.
And you know the worst part? Hillary cosigned it.
KARL ROVE:
Ouch!
DICK MORRIS
: That speaks volumes.
KARL ROVE
: Fucking volumes!
DICK MORRIS:
How about you? Any problem with the PAC’s?
KARL ROVE:
Adelson’s been up my butt all month, claiming that I was skimming money from Crossroads.
DICK MORRIS
: Weren’t you?
KARL ROVE
: Yeah but he’ll never have any actionable evidence, thank you, FEC.
(To Bartender.)
You didn’t hear that!
BARTENDER
: Hear what?
KARL ROVE
:
You’re a scholar and a gentlemen.
(To Morris.)
Trouble is I’ve got the money in offshore accounts that I can’t access because of Anonymous.
DICK MORRIS
: Why? What are they doing?
KARL ROVE:
I get a new laptop. I barely have it open five minutes. Next thing I know, it’s running like it’s been dipped in maple syrup because it’s been infected with nine kinds of malware and they’ve loaded the hard drive with the kind of Japanese porn that makes you throw up.
DICK MORRIS:
Does that include the stuff where they actually throw up?
KARL ROVE
:
(Nods.)
I can’t even get them repaired. I gotta bury then and cover the holes in cement. I’ve gone through five laptops in three weeks. My backyard’s starting to look like Forest Lawn.
Just then, we hear The Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil”. Rove pulls out an iPhone.
KARL ROVE
You got a pitcher of water?
The Bartender puts a pitcher on the bar. Rove hits the speaker and holds the phone a foot from his face.
MAN’S VOICE (Over.)
Hey, Karl! It’s Nate Silver. Just called to ask you a quick question.
(Beat.)
WHO’S GOT THE MATH NOW, BITCH!!!
As Silver breaks into a cackle over the phone, Rove drops it into the pitcher.
KARL ROVE
: Seventh phone. They keep giving Silver the new number too.
The Bartender refills their glasses.
BARTENDER:
Last call, fellas. This round is on the house.
KARL ROVE
: Thanks.
BARTENDER
: What can I say? I’m a sucker for a sob story.
(Beat.)
I gotta check the bathrooms. You guys all right?
They nod and mumble. The Bartender heads for the restrooms.
DICK MORRIS
: So, it’s come to this. Off the air, pitied by bartenders and hounded by nerds.
(Beat.)
What the fuck happened to us, Karl? We were golden gods! Now we’re lucky if we get though the day without getting spit on or sued.
KARL ROVE
: The salad days are clearly over.
DICK MORRIS
: We’re finished. I can’t even get a talk radio gig because I sound too much like static. What are we gonna do?
KARL ROVE
:
I don’t know.
LEE ATWATER:
I’ll tell you what you must do…
They turn to see the ghost of LEE ATWATER standing behind them. He’s wearing a ragged suit, weighted down with chains and carrying a guitar that has the words “THIS MACHINE KILLS WELFARE MOTHERS” stenciled on it. He speaks in ghostly cadences.
KARL ROVE
: Holy shit!
LEE ATWATER
: YOU…MUST…ATONE!
KARL ROVE
: Lee...is that you?
LEE ATWATER:
In life I was known as Lee Atwater. Political operative. I was responsible for putting men in office who did not deserve it and in the process, sowed the seeds of bitter fruit.
(Indicates his chains.)
In life, I formed these chains with acts of deceit, cruelty and general acts of ratfuckery. I bought out the worst in my fellow man, all the while helping to corrupt the democratic process.
(Beat.)
And these chains I forged in life, I wear in death. The same chains that you forge even now. But you can but still escape my fate. Walk away from politics and devote your life to good works. Repent. Repent! REPENT!!
Pause.
KARL ROVE
: Seriously? What the fuck, Lee?
DICK MORRIS
: Yeah, I know it’s December and you’re going for a Jacob Marley thing. But still…?
KARL ROVE:
And what’s with the whole repent and do good works thing?
DICK MORRIS
: It’s like dying of cancer turned you into a pussy or something.
At that moment, Atwater drops the chains and starts speaking normally.
LEE ATWATER:
Yeah, I told them this Christmas Carol bullshit wouldn’t work.
KARL ROVE
: Who’s them?
He sits down facing them.
LEE ATWATER
: They. Them. Those who cannot be named because the veil cannot be pierced by the living, only the dead, yadda, yadda.
KARL ROVE
: So…how are things?
LEE ATWATER
: Honestly…it’s been hell.
KARL ROVE:
How so?
LEE ATWATER:
(Beat.)
I died and went to hell. It ain’t that complicated.
DICK MORRIS
: Wait, I thought you converted to Catholicism on your deathbed.
LEE ATWATER:
Yeah, well it turns out that dodge doesn’t work. My orientation guy my first week was Pope Alexander the Sixth.
KARL ROVE:
Is Hell as bad as they say? You know, demons, lake of fire and all that?
LEE ATWATER:
Honestly, it’s more mundane.
(Beat.)
They’ve got me in a studio apartment. It’s always twenty degrees too warm. The clock radio plays nothing but Henry Mancini and my roommate is Ted Bundy who, by the way, never stops masturbating.
DICK MORRIS
: Lucky break for Bundy.
LEE ATWATER:
Not really, he has sandpaper grafted to his hands. But that’s beside the point. The actual point is that you guys need to stop now.
KARL ROVE
: Stop what?
LEE ATWATER
: What you’ve been doing?
(Beat.)
You guys have been enabling the GOP in its current death spiral. And the fact is that a lot of people are getting hurt in the process. You guys are in the pipeline and if you keep going in this direction…
He indicates himself.
KARL ROVE
: Lee, you can’t be serious about this?
LEE ATWATER:
Karl, I’m sharing a studio apartment with a degenerate serial killer and I got the less awful Bush elected. You want to chew on that one for a moment?
Pause.
DICK MORRIS
: So…what? We’re supposed to work for Democrats now?
LEE ATWATER
: You kidding? You guys are so thick with slime right now, no one outside the GOP would hire you.
(Beat.)
Well, maybe the Greens might accept some pro-bono work but come on…
(Beat.)
No, the only way out for you guys is to quit the business, give whatever excess monies you have left to charity and do nothing.
DICK MORRIS
:
And that’ll get us into heaven?
LEE ATWATER
You. Yes. Karl…best I can promise you is Limbo. And that’s only if you donate a kidney to an orphan.
Pause.
KARL ROVE
: Yeah, we could do that…or…
DICK MORRIS
: Karl, you got something cooking?
KARL ROVE
: How about this. What if we accept that we’re going to hell but when we get there…we take it over?
LEE ATWATER
: WHAT?
DICK MORRIS:
How?
KARL ROVE
: We get there and we start a popular uprising against Satan. Lee, that’s
what they call him down there, right?
LEE ATWATER:
I’m not helping.
KARL ROVE
: We spread rumors about his effectiveness. Start claiming he’s no longer proactive about getting souls. That’s he’s becoming too lenient on The Damned.
DICK MORRIS
: We can say that he wants to change their title to The Darned.
KARL ROVE:
I can work with that.
LEE ATWATER
: Are you insane? Do you know the strings I had to pull to come up here to warn you guys?
(Beat.)
Sweet lord, I promised to give Bundy a hand job.
KARL ROVE:
I say that we could be running the place within six months, a year tops. What do you say, Dick?
DICK MORRIS:
You know what Dante once wrote. “Better to be a Prince in hell than serve in heaven”.
LEE ATWATER:
You know, I have it on good authority that he meant that sarcastically.
Rove gets up and slaps a twenty on the bar then starts for the door. Morris follows.
KARL ROVE
: I’ll get Rand Paul on the phone. Can you get a hold of Rubio?
DICK MORRIS
: What do I pitch him? President or VP?
KARL ROVE:
Keep it vague. We’ll work it out later.
(To Lee.)
Lee, how can I ever thank you?
LEE ATWATER
: You know that Manson doesn’t have that much time left. You honestly want to wind up with him as a roommate?
KARL ROVE
: I think we’ll surprise you.
They exit.
LEE ATWATER
:
(Yelling after them.)
You know what the surprise is gonna be? How much Manson likes to talk about Roman Polanski! Spoiler alert, IT’S A LOT!
Just then the Bartender returns and sees Lee. The two just look at each other for a moment.
LEE ATWATER:
(Finally.)
So…by any chance is there a House of Blues near here?
BLACKOUT.
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