Steve's* Republican-Hollywood Amour News of the Day
*An extreme far-centrist foundation!
Republicans Make Nice With Hollywood!
This rant is no joke: comic Dennis Miller latest to feel the draft!
by Steve Young

Sept. 29, 2003 -- LOS ANGELES (apj.us) -- News Item: A prominent Republican operative and Schwarzenegger aide who spoke on the condition of anonymity said that once the recall election is over, he plans to recruit Dennis Miller to challenge Barbara Boxer for her US Senate seat next year.

You know the old expression: if an action star who hardly grunts more than three words of dialogue can become Governor, just imagine what a comedian who spews 13 syllable references to obscure historical and literary characters in his sleep could do.

Run for US Senator is the answer.

Dennis Miller for Senator?

A Republican one at that?

Now, I don't want to get off on a rant here, but cosmopolitan as it might seem, a couple years ago I figured it would be more likely that Ma and Pa Montague would have invited the Capulets over to discuss the kids' contraceptive options.

I am wont to tell aspiring screenwriters that if they want to sell a film script, first write it as a book. That way, the studio will think you're really a writer; that you're a credible literary mind (more so than these Hollywood hacks... of which you are one); and that the public is already buying you even if the form is different. Studio people believe more in what someone else thinks than what they do. It's safer. There's an old industry joke about a studio head who just read a script and when asked how he liked it he says, "I don't know, no one else has read it yet."

Well, it looks as if a bit of a twist on that theory now applies to high level political office.

If you want to attain powerful governmental position, first act in a movie or tell a joke. It makes you more attractive to the voter (or at least to the party seeking to attract the voter). Name recognition, stage presence, ability to deceive the audience into believing you're something you're not -- all are great attributes for someone running for office.

With Dennis delivering the punchlines at assorted Republican chest-beating galas, this latest Conservatives intermarriage announcement is not as surprising as Plato finally acknowledging that he'd pulled a Jayson Blair on Socrates. But it does confirm a ready compromise of the Right's standards for candidate acceptability. The Schwarzenegger run evidences a move away from requiring the GOP's standard bearer to be the second coming and heads full throttle into Bill Clinton territory.

Ironical, ain't it?

This is nothing against Dennis.

Dennis, in fact, worked for me in ye ole comedy club days, long before the polysyllables (he actually used, get ready for this... props), long before the late night rants, and long before Monday Night Football or, most recently, his conversion to the fair and balanced nuances of FOX News.

I always found him to be a nice guy, though I find his rationale for his political metamorphosis to be somewhat flimsy.

On Bill Maher's "Real Time" on HBO, he said that he decided to go the right way when his liberal friends in New York started "Hitlerizing" President Bush. For someone as rantingly passionate and intellectually circumspect as Dennis to let other peoples' charges, mean-spirited though they might seem, so dramatically adjust this sagacious thinker's political point of view, methinks his explanation is less than sincere.

How thin were his convictions before he heard his friends speak so hatefully? Has he ever heard the compassionate ideology of Karl Rove? Has he ever read Ann Coulter? Hell, has he thought to check out the 24/7 derisive diatribes of the same talk radio that a few short months ago decried Hollywood for speaking out and now is foraging The Improv and The Viper Room for Republican candidates to support?

You would have expected it more likely to see Frank Morgan come out from behind the curtain and present Tom DeLay with a heart.

Dennis was always more than a comic. He was a satirist. One of his Dennis's strongest assets was his ability to use his humor to hammer at the lies and abuse of the powerful: the double-speak, the corruption and the distortions from either side of the aisle... sometimes even the aisle itself. With his move to FOX and the Republican Party, he has traded in the mantle of pure ideologue for one of the pure partisan. He has become the very thing that he once found to be such a rich source of material. He's moved from shooter to target; from joke teller to butt of the joke.

Of course it's his choice but he must know that he can no longer be considered a true satirist; one who holds up the abuses to ridicule. If he chooses to run for office he'll be forced to drop all manner of truth for he'll be forced to not only purport his side as the right side, but he'll have to anything that the only side to choose. He'll do it cleverly and with references that 90% of his California supporters will need an abstract metaphor decoder to appreciate.

No matter. They'll figure that in the least he must have said something pithy, probably funny and then they'll vote for him.

But what of eventual higher office: national potential? Will the heartland accept Dennis? Will Christopher Walken steal a film if given at least thirty seconds of screen time to chew the scenery? It's a given, as long as they think he can win and there's a big ol' "R" painted on his chest. In other words, it doesn't matter what he says only that he is running on their ticket. Pretty much the same attitude I have with my candidates of choice.

So who will be hurt most by Dennis leaving joining the right and running for office? It's difficult to know for sure. The Republicans' gain is certainly the comedy audience's loss. Then again, you got to feel for Brit Hume, previously thought to be the Funniest Guy at FOX.

Honestly, I'm sorry to lose Dennis and his take to politics. Why couldn't the Republicans have drafted Colin Quinn? I'd make that trade faster than a Vietnamese buffet going Jeff Gordon through my digestive system. Of course, that's just my opinion -- I could be wrong.

Former gubernatorial candidate Steve Young is an award-winning television writer, director/writer of "My Dinner With Ovitz"", and author of "Great Failures of the Extremely Successful" (Tallfellow Press -- check out the web site at http://www.greatfailure.com). He writes a regular column for Jewish World Review".