Cross-posted at Clark Community Network.
Two Giant Tips of the Hat to Chip for recommending that I watch the original version of the "The Conversation" and for recommending the inclusion of the Matthew Dowd story in this post...
Watching the goings-on in Washington lately, I couldn’t help but notice a pattern here. Every single story or scandal seems to be a loose translation of a movie I’ve seen before. So, I thought I’d write about three of these stories as if I were scripting movie trailers for fictitious films.
Read the trailer scripts below the fold...
TRAILER #1
MUSIC:
TENSE, STICATTO VIOLINS
VIDEO MONTAGE:
EXTREME CLOSE-UPS OF MONEY CHANGING HANDS, LIPS TALKING, GAVEL BANGING, RIGHT HAND ON A BIBLE
ANNOUNCER:
Did a notorious political hatchet man use government contracts to help Republicans win re-election? How much does one GSA Administrator know about it? Can she stand the heat of oversight hearings? And what does that glass of water have to do with any of it?
Find out what happens when one woman’s dark secrets become out-of-control paranoia.
Starring Lurita Doan as the government official with plenty to hide. And Representative Henry Waxman as the long-lost, corruption-busting congressman in...
"The Conversation, Part 2: The water has ears."
TRAILER #2
MUSIC:
"THE WAY WE WERE" BY BARBARA STREISAND
VIDEO:
SNAPSHOTS OF VALENTINE’S DAY CARDS, FLOWERS, LEAD CHARACTERS WALKING HAND-IN-HAND, ETC. PHOTOS IGNITE INTO INTENSE FIRE.
ANNOUNCER:
An American president, handicapped by his own mental faculties and driven by a lust for power and wealth. Another man, the President's unlikely Saudi soul mate. A strange, twisted fate had brought them together in a field of Texas bluebonnets. Only a civil war in Iraq could could tear them apart – and give Middle Eastern dominance to their common rival.
George W. Bush and Saudi King Abdullah star in this carefree love story turned heart-wrenching human tragedy...
"The Break-Up 2: Iranian Boogaloo"
Trailer #3
MUSIC:
SLOW MILITARY DRUMROLL
VIDEO:
QUOTE ON SCREEN. TIGHT ZOOM ON THE WORD "TRUE." SLOWLY ZOOM OUT TO REVEAL ENTIRE QUOTE.
"A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it."
-Oscar Wilde
ANNOUNCER:
What happens when one political strategist, overwrought by his guilty conscience, finally comes clean about the blood on his hands? A Washington insider reveals what so many people already suspected – that his client was responsible for thousands of deaths and, if left unstopped, would be responsible for so many more.
Even worse for the whistleblower was the realization that he enabled the killing. Now, it’s up to him to try to set things right – and to survive the smear campaign that he would surely face for telling the truth.
Based on the true story of Matthew Dowd. Starring Matthew Dowd, George W. Bush and White House mudslingers Dan Bartlett and Dana Perino...
"The Insider, Part 2: What the hell was I thinking?"