I’ve written several articles skewering HBO for producing political projects destined to air immediately prior to the 2012 election, where the vast majority of the cast and crew are passionate Barack Obama supporters, and where the content is aimed at the Democrat’s two favorite Republican villains: Sarah Palin and Dick Cheney. So, when I sat down to watch HBO’s Too Big to Fail, I prepared myself for the worst. What I didn’t expect was the big surprise awaiting me.

Too Big to Fail, which premieres on HBO on May 23, 2011, features a star studded cast recounting the events that led to the financial crisis and bailouts by the U.S. government in 2008. It is a mini-series packed into a 98-minute made-for-television movie where several essential characters are quickly introduced and where finance and economics are casually discussed. It may help if one has a baseline of knowledge about the crisis before watching the movie. If one doesn’t know who Henry Paulson, Ben Bernanke, and Timothy Geithner are or what Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs, and AIG are, it may prove slightly difficult to follow.

Although the Director, Curtis Hanson (L.A. Confidential, 8 Mile), was limited to telling a very long and complicated story in a very short amount of time, he was able to skillfully pull it off. Perhaps this is because the screenwriter, Peter Gould (Breaking Bad), deftly adapted Andrew Ross Sorkin’s 2009 prize winning New York Times Bestseller, Too Big to Fail. (more…)

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Listen closely to the rocket scientist. Bill Maher says ”America is a stupid country” because ”Sarah Palin could be president.” Then when CNN’s Wolf Blitzer argues that America elected Barack Obama, Maher responds, “Look who he was running against.”

Well, he was running against McCain and PALIN. So… (more…)

It’s going to be a very sparse one this week, since Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, Bill Maher, Stephen Colbert, and Jon Stewart were all on vacation. (Last week, everybody but Stewart and Colbert were on vacation so I didn’t watch. They re-ran those episodes this week, but except for the Michael Jackson stuff, there wasn’t really enough overlap material to judge them fairly).

Lamest Attempt at Obama Joke: David Letterman claimed that Obama was in Russia, hiking the Appalachian trail.

Letterman also used John McCain as a foil on three different nights to compare the disparity between winners and losers of the last Presidential election: While Obama traveled to Russia to meet with Putin, McCain was chasing kids off his lawn. While Obama was in Italy, McCain was heating up a can of Chef Boy-Ar-Dee; While Obama was in Italy meeting with the G-8, McCain was on his front porch in Arizona, waving at cars. (more…)

It has been amusing to watch the speculation of the Alaska Governor’s motivations and future aspirations after announcing her resignation last Friday. Senate bid? “No, Alaskans would never forgive her for leaving them” said the Sunday shows. Presidential bid? “Not possible now,” say the smartest strategists and campaigners. Host a talk show? Sell books? Go on the lecture circuit? All possible, though not all probable. But the one thing most of the pundits on both the left and the right in Washington D.C. have declared certain – Palin’s political career is D.O.A.

Not so fast, my friends. Since we’re all engaged in wild speculation, allow the reading of one more set of tea leaves, if you please.
 
You can roll your eyes and tease Palin’s supposed lightweight intellectual status. You can bury your head in shame when Charlie Gibson peers down his nose through his reading glasses and stumps her with international policy questions. You may say she had no business on the national stage from the get-go last fall when John McCain announced her as his vice presidential pick. But what you cannot ignore, nor take from her is what she is about to seize on in a big way. (more…)

David Letterman was just rising – earlier than you might think for a guy who’s show is on late enough for college partiers and “freelancers” to enjoy without fear of feeling tired the next day. You’d think that only if you didn’t know the show is taped earlier in the day – and what was taped this week certainly stirred the pot.

“You think maybe you would have edited that, David?” Mr. Carson asked, standing in the lavish bathroom.

“I mean your producer had the time. They could have cut it, right?”

Carson looked very young. Circa ‘66 young.

Letterman was incredulous.  “Johnny… what the heck are you doing here, how can this be possible?” the aging late night host queried. (more…)

While volunteering for the McCain Campaign last year, I ran across a display of quotes by former President Ronald Reagan… One of them touched my heart so deeply that it inspired me to sit down and start writing a song as a tribute to our men and women in the United States Military.

The quote said… 

“We all share the love of peace, but our sons and daughters must learn two lessons men everywhere and in every time have had to learn:  that the price of freedom is dear, but not nearly as costly as the loss of freedom – and that the advance and continuation of civilization depend on those values for which men have always been willing to die for…” 

While some of our brave men and women in uniform have made it safely back home to their loved ones, others have come home wounded – their lives forever changed.  Yet still, there are those who have gone on to another home – paying the ultimate price for freedom… with their lives…  (more…)

Newt Gingrich is much taller in person than he is on TV. The lovely Bride of Konig (author of I Wear The Maternity Pants In This Family – www.susankonig.com) and I were invited to a screening of the Newt and Callista Gingrich – produced documentary Ronald Reagan Rendezvous With Destiny the other night, and we got to meet the former Speaker of the House. For some reason I always thought he was on the short, roly poly side. TV’s short, roly poly is, in person, tall, barrel chested and imposing. This is, oddly, the exact opposite of me. On TV I am tall and thin, in person I’m short and fat. 

Reagan, Judy Garland, Henry Fonda, Boris Karloff, Gene Kelly

This rare date night out without the various Spawn of Konig, naturally coincided with a gig for me: as my wife was settling into the Director’s Guild Screening Room on W. 57th. 72nd street performing a comedy sketch with TV host extraordinaire Bill Boggs in his live show Talk Show Confidential. The cue for my sketch with Bill is the end of his Richard Nixon anecdote. Boggs tells a very funny story of being a teen-aged intern in the 1960s on a talk show, and the guest is Richard Nixon. Boggs is assigned to Nixon, to make sure Nixon gets to the set on time. En route, Nixon makes a pit stop. Young Boggs is then confronted with his first major, television talk show crisis: how to tell the imposing former Vice President that he’s not only about to go on camera with his fly open, but it’s a “Grand Mal Unzipping,” the kind where your shirt tail is hanging out of the fly. (more…)

If you just got nailed for doing something stupid or immoral, just find out how your accuser also did something stupid or immoral and you’re off the hook! It doesn’t even have to be for the same indiscretion, just throw everything you’ve got at em’ and hope something sticks. If they did something wrong, then they’re a hypocrite! Hypocrite! Hypocrite!

This is a common tactic I see in modern debate, and it’s closely related to the “who are you to judge” fallout from our post-modern generation. The implication is that if you look for a fault and find it, we collectively lose the ability to call it wrong if we also practice it. If I claim your candidate is a liar, you just Google a quote where my candidate told a lie and suddenly telling a lie is off the table. Stupid, I know. But that’s where we’re at. (more…)

Hollywood loves a sequel, and so does Big Hollywood.  My post about Frank Rich and his penchant for repeating left-wing urban legends as fact garnered many comments from both sides of the issue asking for the post to be longer or to add more examples.  I admit that calling Rich a “Big Fat Liar” with only one example may have been a bit thin.  So here is another quick example, and I’ll keep bringing them if Theatre-boy Frank keeps writing them.

Big Lie:  “Weimar-like rage at McCain-Palin rallies”

In his October 11th column, Theatre-boy Frank cites, “At McCain-Palin rallies, the raucous and insistent cries of “Treason!” and “Terrorist!” and “Kill him!” and “Off with his head!” as well as the uninhibited slinging of racial epithets…”.  I’ve included all of his links so you can hunt them down yourself.  I find it interesting that his three sources are Dana Milbank of the Washington Post, MSNBC and The Huffington Post.  What happened to the paper of record as a source for news?  Are you really citing another opinion columnist, a left-wing blog and MSNBC as your news sources? (more…)

Look, I recommend it.  Watching him do everything short of wear a fake beard and top hat is going to be tough for anyone who didn’t buy into the cult of Obama.  If, like me, you don’t think that this is somehow America’s great new chance at being “cool”….if you know that unsung heroes within the Bush administration have been fighting against human trafficking for lo these many years while Ashton Kutcher apparently waited until now to get really excited….if you know a campaign for a “within our lifetimes” addition to Mount Rushmore when you see one…well, drink with me, won’t you?  Drink, and let us hope the ‘morrow has mercy, because they won’t.

UNLESS you work for the RNC.  In that case, you old dinosaurs, you must watch soberly.  You have to sit through the whole self-congratulatory festival of “we-were-once-the-ones-the-One-said-we-were-waiting-for-but-now-everything’s-just-awesome-and-look-at-all-the-famous-people.  Watch and weep at the pretentiously magnanimous interviews and the well-shot “candid” appearances of celebrities.  Witness Bruce, Garth, The Jonas Brothers, and the thousand other young artists you could neither name nor get on the phone. (more…)