The Editor's Mess

Chances are, you haven't heard that the Supreme Court this year overturned an old ban on corporations spending money to influence elections. They did, you can Google it. It's out there. If you really, really want to, you can read it for yourself right from the horse's mouth, or opposite orifice depending on your stance I guess. It's 183 pages of creamy lawyerly goodness. It came out of that big building in D.C. with the pretty columns outside that's bursting with lawyers. No, that's the Congress, I meant the other one. Hell, it's on Mapquest.

Now the Supreme Court rules on lots of stuff nobody cares about. For instance, I'll bet you didn't care at all about their ruling in "Conkright v. Frommert" either. This had something to do with pension plans and how the accountants at Xerox figured them out. The court wisely decided that "people make mistakes," and that "most of the factual details [were] unnecessary" to their decision. They decided a bunch of other stuff too, but none of it was funny so I sort of spaced out and got another beer.

This one, though -- the ruling on corporations spending unlimited amounts of dough on elections -- really upset a lot of people who thought this would "undermine" the American political system. Meanwhile, others were absolutely paralytic with glee, and literally had to pinch themselves -- several times -- to make sure they weren't in a beautiful, sexy dream. These guys eventually realized it wasn't a dream -- after way too much sexy pinching if you ask me -- and then got down to work. But I'll get back to this later, provided I'm not too drunk.  Nah, I'm already there, forget it.

These doom-sayers are way too pessimistic. "Undermine" is a very strong word, and isn't that really just another way to say "make more interesting"? I think it's a great ruling! Let me explain.

See, the whole thing started with a movie. It was called, in fact, "Hillary: The Movie." It's a 90 minute film released in January 2008 about (then) Senator Hillary Clinton, that, the way the court put it: "depicts interviews with political commentators and other persons, most of them quite critical of Senator Clinton." They also called it "a feature-length negative advertisement that urges viewers to vote against Senator Clinton for President." (Sure, that's ONE way of looking at it.)

Anyway, the company that made the flick, a non-profit corporation called "Citizens United," wanted to distribute the film widely and do a bunch of advertising to promote it, like any other movie company would. Specifically they wanted to run it on cable pay-per-view (for free in this case) right before the presidential election that year. This pissed some people off, they (the corporation) got sued, and this went all the way up the chain to the highest court in the land, as near as I can tell, but I'll admit to being WAY BORED by this time slogging through a bunch of legal crap just to figure out what the hell they were talking about.

So, bottom line here, some guys made a movie slamming Hillary and wanted to get it out to as many people as possible (37 million cable subscribers in this case) right before the election. The Federal Election Commission said "no way," and the Supreme Court said "go for it." No, that's not a direct quote, trust me. These guys went on...and on... and ON for like 50 pages. I hope they're not paid by the word. If they are, now I finally get the budget deficit.

Since "Hillary: The Movie" is a-okay now, I, for one, look forward to the flicks we've got coming in 2012. More specifically, I hope to cash in on the trend. So I'll do my part, and give you budding filmmakers out there a few pitches. All I ask for is a little attribution, an executive producer title, and hefty points on the backend, of course.

• "Obama: The Anti-Christ?"(release date: Oct. 15, 2012). A scholarly examination of Revelations that clearly delineates the rising of the anti-christ to the Presidency of Barack Obama. We don't say he IS the anti-christ, just that there's a lot of evidence that he might be.
• "Hillary: Four Years of Failure"(release date: Oct. 15, 2012). An unflinching look at the conspicuous record of failure and atrocity in the State Department over the past 4 years, backed by interviews of many people who've consistently monitored stories on Fox News.
• "Sarah Palin: Triumph of Will" (release date: Oct. 15, 2012). A revealing look at the mis-understood, strong woman who rose from humble beginnings and overcame incredible adversity to lead a nation back to its former glory.
• "Mitt Romney: Caring Too Much!"(release date: Oct. 15, 2010). A careful documentary that reveals how the former governor gave health-care to everyone in Massachusetts, because he cared too much, but why such a thing is clearly silly when applied to a whole nation.

Of course, these are just to whet your appetite. I have plenty more. Contact me and I'll send over the contract and we can get the ball rolling.