You have come up with some great suggestions for the worst holiday movie of all time. However, Tony Blankley, the former press secretary to Newt Gingrich, and current … well, I don’t know what he does now except write for Town Hall … has taken the contest one better by proposing the plot of a NEW classically bad Christmas movie. At least, I think that’s the idea behind his latest column, “The lonely president.”
So, let’s all listen while Tony gives us the basic pitch for his own made-for-TV holiday film – and I hope the programming execs from the Hallmark Channel are reading us today.
Act 1: A lonely, discredited, President sits at home alone in the White House, not participating in the seasonal feelings of peace on earth and stuff because nobody approves of his war.
The American presidency has been called “A Glorious Burden” by the Smithsonian Museum, and the loneliest job in the world by historians. As we approach Christmas 2006 Anno Domini, President Bush is surely fully seized of the loneliness and burden of his office.
For rarely has a president stood more alone at a moment of high crisis than does our president now as he makes his crucial policy decisions on the Iraq War. His political opponents stand triumphant, yet barren of useful guidance. Many — if not most — of his fellow party men and women in Washington are rapidly joining his opponents in a desperate effort to save their political skins in 2008. Commentators who urged the president on in 2002-03, having fallen out of love with their ideas, are quick to quibble with and defame the president.
[…]
Not surprisingly the most recent polls show just 21 percent approval of his handling of the war — an 8 percent drop since the election, and that mostly from Republicans and conservatives. Overall, his job approval level is down to 31 percent.
I’m sure you see the parallels with the first part of “It’s a Wonderful Life.” For, just like George Bailey, George Bush sacrificed his dreams of seeing the world being an alcoholic drifter in order to take up the family burden of being President, and now everybody hates him just because Uncle Billy the Democrats have lost the deposit lost the victory in Iraq. And, just like in the Capra clasic, nobody appreciates this George’s integrity, excellent business sense, and plans to topple mean old Mr. Potter, and so he is feeling bitter, unappreciated, and suicidal.
So, it’s the perfect set-up for the holiday miracle, in which an angel, Santa Claus, or an unwed mother show up to show Mr. Bush the true meaning of Christmas, and thereby redeem his soul.
Act 2: Enter the ghost of Victory Past.
If Washington gossip is right, even many of the president’s own advisers in the White House and the key cabinet offices have given up on success. Official Washington, the media and much of the public have fallen under the unconscionable thrall of defeatism. Which is to say that they cannot conceive of a set of policies — for a nation of 300 million with an annual GDP of over $12 trillion and all the skills and technologies known to man — to subdue the city of Baghdad and environs. Do you think Gen. Patton or Abe Lincoln or Winston Churchill or Joseph Stalin would have thrown their hands up and said, “I give up, there’s nothing we can do”?
Yes, this is where the ghost of Joseph Stalin shows up to kick Mr. Bush in the keister, and then teach him about tenacity, determination, and executing one’s critics in mass purges. Mr. Bush is heartened by the spirit’s visit, and vows to mend his ways and become the brutal dictator he was meant to be.
He arises from bed and calls out to a young press secretary on the lawn, “What day is this?”
The boy replies, “Why, it’s the 1367th day since the declaration of Mission Accomplished in Iraq, sir!” (It seems that the lad was quite a “Countdown” fan, a fact which the FBI had missed until this point.)
“But we still have a war, right?” asks the groggy President.
Assured that there is still a conflict that he can win by using the lessons taught to him by his otherworldly mentor, Mr. Bush starts the day with a renewed spirit of optimism and tyranny.
Act 3: Redemption, Human Cloning, and a Bright, Shiny, Promising New World War
If the victory is that important — and it is — then failure must be unthinkable, even if it takes another five or 10 years.
And yet, when I exclusively interviewed two members of the Baker commission last week, they explicitly told me that they didn’t propose increased troop strength because their military advisers told them it wasn’t currently available.
Well, in 1943, we didn’t have the troop strength for D-Day in 1944, and in 1863, we didn’t have the troop strength (or the strategies) for the victory of 1865. But we had enough to hold on until the troops could be recruited and trained (and winning strategies developed). And so we do today. I have been told by reliable military experts that we can introduce upward of 50,000 combat troops promptly — enough to hold on until more help can be on the way.
Sure, President Bush encounters some obstacles in his new resolve to win the war the Stalin way – Syd Fields would insist on as much. For example, when he tells Congress that he needs 50,000 troops promptly, and so is reinstating the draft, they tell the President that none of THEIR kids will participate in the war, what with it being so uncomfortable and dangerous and such. But Mr. Bush triumphs over adversity by awarding a defense contract to Halliburton, paying them to create him a vast army of Snowflake babies (aged to battle readiness via the judicious use of human growth hormones). He also has them make a platoon of stem-cell copies of Ann Coulter storm troopers, just in case.
And thus, the new World War is soon underway, and, with the prospect of a glorious victory in our grasp within just ten years or so, the movie ends on a triumphant yet heartwarming note when little Jenna lisps, “Teacher said, whenever an Iraqi dies, a demon earns his horns.”
The End . . .Or Is It?
Mr. President, you are not alone. The ghost of Old Abe is on your shoulder. God Bless you and Merry Christmas.
Then the ghost of Honest Abe pulls George’s nose, pokes his eyes, and smacks Georgie upside the head for being such a twit, and we have the true heartwarming ending.