Monday, September 18, 2006

Breaking news: Hayworth Hires New Speechwriter - Henry Blake



Separated at birth???


At yesterday's candidate forum at Temple Emanuel in Tempe, JD gave this utterly profound evaluation of the realities of war, slightly paraphrased because I was laughing so hard at the fact that he stole these lines that I couldn't take notes:


"I've learned two rules about war.

One, sometimes we have to send our young men off to fight, and sometimes die.

Two, we can't do anything to change that."
As soon has he started on the "two rules" bit, I flashed on McLean Stevenson delivering some *very* similar lines to Alan Alda.

The original
quote (scroll to the bottom of the page. It's second from the bottom.)


"Look, all I know is what they taught me at command school. There are certain rules about a war and rule number one is young men die. And rule number two is doctors can't change rule number one." - Lt. Col. Henry Blake to Capt. Hawkeye Pierce, Season 1, Episode 'Sometimes You Hear the Bullet,' Original Airdate January 28, 1973, Written by Carl Kleinschmitt.
[This episode is most notable for two things - a pre-Happy Days and post-Andy Griffith Show Ron Howard, and it contains the above-noted scene, considered by fans to be McLean Stevenson's finest dramatic moment during the series.]

The cynical part of me believes that JD (and his writers!) knows where he stole the line from, but they are congratulating themselves on taking scene from a TV show that opposed an unpopular war and turning it around to use it to support another unpopular war.

Of course, I could just give him the benefit of the doubt and consider it simple laziness.

I had a much longer post written last night, one that detailed the rest of the forum as well. However my Blogger window crashed before I could save it, and I was too tired to rewrite it last night. I'll post the report of the forum later.

There wasn't anything Earth-shattering, but it was interesting nonetheless.

Time to go see the Governor in Scottsdale.

Later!



5 comments:

Michael said...

Has it occurred to anybody in the Mitchell campaign to point out that J.D. is actually in a prime position to "do something about" dying soldiers?

I mean, does this bully really want to make it sounds like he's helpless in preventing the loss of life when he's actually ultimately responsible for it? I think many voters are smart enough to make this connection, but many more will need a reminder.

Throwing up your arms and asking, "what can you do?" is not a strategy for winning the war or whatever the GOP talking points are calling it this week. This is a great opportunity for Harry Mitchell, and I hope he seizes on it.

Anonymous said...

Somewhat off track, but do you have any idea why Skip Rimsza withdrew from the Sec of State race back in June? I googled and read a lot of blogs but could barely even find that he did withdraw, certainly not why.

And yes, I was hoping to read about the Sunday event from you, the papers did not cover it.

Craig said...

phalanges - I'm not sure because I wasn't really paying attention to it, but some of the stuff that I heard at the time is that he was having trouble garnering support or money for a run against another Republican.

Especially one that is in the good graces of the GOP leadership.

In other words, with no votes and no contributions, and no name rec outside of Phoenix to get the votes and money, he had no chance in the primary.

Zelph said...

I read somewhere, I think the Arizona Capitol Times, that Rimza was persuaded to withdraw by Republican party leadership.

Desert Beacon said...

Good catch! "Government by screenplay."