In this episode, “NewsBusted” covers: President Obama, Afghanistan, Nobel Prize Committee, Al Gore, Copenhagen Climate Change Conference, Rush Limbaugh, Meghan McCain, Chris Matthews, George Lopez, Tiger Woods, Carlos Mencia, and Meredith Baxter Birney.

“I asked my mother if she would come see ["Brothers"] with me, but she said she didn’t want to give any money to a movie in which the preview showed the soldier coming back home and waving a gun at his family in their driveway. I have to admit, the preview disturbed me as well, but decided to see the film anyway because I’m always curious about Hollywood’s take on our soldiers and the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Unfortunately, many of these films typically portray our soldiers as deserters—Stop Loss is another classic example of this stereotyping—or complete whackjobs.

“In Brothers, not only does one of the Marines captured by the Taliban actually say that he “realized we shouldn’t be there,” but Maguire’s character beats a fellow soldier to death with a lead pipe. Sam then returns home to his family and goes AWOL trying to kill both his wife and his brother. I don’t care if every producer, director, and screenwriter in Hollywood is against the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq (and presumably most are), what offends me is the portrayal of soldiers as cowards and lunatics—driven to such lengths that they come home and try to kill their families. Obviously, post-traumatic stress disorder has become more prevalent in the military and clearly this is a problem that needs to be seriously addressed. But I believe these films add to the damage when they portray soldiers as disloyal, unwilling to serve, and against the missions themselves. In my experience, this couldn’t be further from the truth.

“How many deserters do you actually hear about on the news? Not very many. Unfortunately, the thousands of stories about heroism and courage that could be told about our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan are not in the interest of many Hollywood filmmakers, and so a real disservice is being done to these troops. These films only perpetuate negative stereotypes about soldiers and the military. At a time when support for the war in Afghanistan is dividing this country, I simply don’t understand why Hollywood insists on portraying our soldiers in such a negative light. If Vietnam taught us anything, it was hate the war, love the warrior. …

“I urge everyone to see the documentary Brothers at War to understand what it’s truly like to serve (and be the loved one of someone serving) in a war.”

Read the full article here.

But what do you get when this strategy of over-delivering backfires? Pure comedy unmatched even by a “Golden Girls” marathon.

More specifically, you get pols who never read the health care bill faced with people who have. Witness the town hall meeting this morning with Senator Arlen Specter. The folks present didn’t just read the bill, they’re now quoting it – something even the Titan of Transparency never really wanted.

Even better, this level of discourse is coming from the non-Twitter crowd, the beyond Facebook folks more concerned with Lipitor side effects than Lady Gaga’s lady parts. They are not motivated by racism, as the left wants everyone to believe, but by real concerns – some raised at the dinner table, some reasoned in books. None from Twitter, I imagine.

I only bring up Twitter, because as I watched the PA town meeting, I also came across an online column by Meghan McCain, i.e. Ron Reagan with curves. In a catty struggle for relevance among perceived rivals, she points out that while Michelle Malkin has the number one book on the New York Times bestseller list, McCain has “nearly twice as many Twitter followers as she does. And trust me, Twitter is more of an indication of where young people are than books published by the hyper-conservative publisher Regnery.”

Maybe so, but did these “young people” read the health care proposal? Did they show up at town hall meetings? No – they’re too busy Twittering about “Twilight” (yes, a dated reference, but I like how it sounds). Twitter might have been there for Iran, but in the end, the young people weren’t.

And here is where McCain’s crowing about Twitter reveals a mistake many people make: confusing mass for meaning, accumulation for content. The fact is, the phone book has everything I need to know about the world around me, but I don’t take it to the beach to read. The phone book inspires no one, for it is (or was) a tool used by others to facilitate communication – much like Twitter. To confuse the messaging system with the message should tell Meghan her message needs work. Considering she just signed a hefty book deal, I’d get on that soon.

Which brings me back to those old coots railing at Arlen Specter this morning. That was an honest spectacle generated by a generation unencumbered by the desire for “followers.” Their concerns are bigger: increased government control, their family’s well-being, and of course, their own mortality. They realize that 5000 followers will not come to their funeral. And sadly for Megs, they probably don’t buy books either.

TONIGHT: Harris Faulkner, Tucker Carlson, Remi Spencer and Oderus Urangus from Gwar! Yahoo!

One source of endless enjoyment for me and my co-workers is watching how the various buyers (DVD, television, and international) market the films.  The trailers, posters, and commercials  are wildly different depending on who the intended audience is.  As an example, in the U.S. my latest film is called “Chrome Angels.” It’s a sci-fi/action/comedy about a female biker gang that runs into a town populated by evil cyborgs. At the Cannes Film Market, the distributor is calling it “Cyborg Conquest.”  The trailer and poster don’t even reference female bikers, motorcycles, or comedy.  They, instead, are selling it as a serious action film centered on CGI cyborgs that don’t actually appear in the film.

Hollywood has done this for years.  How many times have you seen a trailer that looked awesome, only to find the film to be lame?  Most of the time the best parts of the movie are in the trailer.  While domestically, we rarely see the blatant trickery demonstrated by the overseas vendors, we are occasionally subjected to marketing elements that don’t match the final product.

Politics today is very similar to Hollywood. We have a President known more for his wife’s fashion and his great speeches than any policy achievements.  After all, do you call someone lost without their script (i.e. teleprompter) anything but an actor?  It’s all style and no substance.  People pick politicians like they pick movies, based on the short version, the “trailer,” and not on the substance of the actual individual.  It’s an emotional decision, based on immediate needs and not on actual principles.

And this, my friends, is where the conservative movement has lost the battle.  Poll after poll indicates that the American public likes President Obama, but are against every single one of his actions and policies.  On a broader scope, they actually are against the very tenants of the liberal agenda.  The people love the trailer and the poster, but the movie itself gets two “big thumbs down.”

The Democrats pulled a great maneuver.  They sold everyone a bunch of tired, old, ideas that we know won’t work as “Hope and Change.” They inflated their box office to make it seem like they had the number one film in the country.   They created the “must see” movie event of the year, despite the fact that their production is lamer than the last installment of the “Police Academy” franchise.

In fact, they cut together a trailer like this one, that sells the film as something it isn’t:

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If you saw that trailer, then paid $10 bucks to see the real movie, you’d be pretty pissed.  Imagine the reaction when the U.S. wakes up and gets the tab for the “Obama Movie” that we’re all living in right now.
All we need to do is refine and change our marketing.  We know the critics (which in our industry is the mainstream media) are going to savage us, but who cares?  How many summer blockbusters that make hundreds of millions of dollars get stellar reviews from the New York Times?

Conservatism is all about freedom.  That’s the sales pitch.  Conservatives endorse freedom.  We are the modern day rebels.  We are the punk rockers of politics.  We like to work hard and party harder.  The government is “The Man.” “The Man” tries to hold you down.  Anybody who wants the “safety net” of cradle to the grave government support should be ridiculed.  And rightfully so.

I grow a bit tired of the in-fighting on all the conservative blogs and news shows between the “social conservatives”: and the Libertarian wing of the party.  Ditch abortion.  Don’t ditch abortion.  Move to the center.  Don’t abandon principles.  It’s a defeatist argument and one that really doesn’t need to be fought.  The David Frums and Meghan McCains have it half right.  Where they lose me is in their obvious attempts to gain approval from our enemies.

But they do have one thing right.  In the current climate, many of the social issues are big losers amongst certain voter groups.  The biggest bloc, and the one we have the greatest potential to turn, is women.  Women tend to poll liberal on issues like gay marriage and abortion.

Now, before this turns into a two-hundred comment post with people yelling about not giving up their core principles, let me be clear.  I do not advocate that the party pull left or advertise itself as “Democrat-light.”  But I do advocate prioritizing the issues that form the foundation of our marketing campaign..

I’m sure “Transformers 2″ has a romantic subtext between Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox.  I’m sure that there are at least two minutes in the film of them making kissy face and being sappy.  Yet, the trailer is all about giant robots trashing everything in sight.  In fact, almost every shot is a giant explosion, or a giant robot.  That’s smart marketing.  It’s a summer popcorn movie.  Give the people what they want.  If there is a great romance or moments of rip-roaring comedy, that’s a pleasant surprise.  But, if I don’t see a forklift turn into a robot and crush an Apache helicopter, I will be disappointed.

Did the Democrats put nationalizing the banks, firing corporate CEOs, and practically making out with Hugo Chavez in their trailer?  Did their poster include Obama’s embarrassing world apology tour?  I think not.

Yet, we allow the media to frame the discussions and the debates.  Why, for example, did most of our pundits take the bait on the Perez Hilton thing and let the media frame the arguments as an example of the gay marriage issue being debated in the public forum?  That incident was about how the left stifles free speech.  It was about how women are second-class citizens in the Democratic party.  Every discussion of Ms. California should have been an opportunity to bring up the media’s treatment of Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton.  But it wasn’t.  Instead, we allowed the Democrats to cut our trailer and replace the robot on the key art with a photo of Shia LaBeouf.

The core values of the movement can be different from the marketing campaign.  That’s the smart way to do it.  It’s how the Democrats took over the government and it’s our only hope at taking it back.