Political acumen of Janeane Garofalo criticized

Incredibly long-winded and pompous screenwriter Thomas McKelvey Cleaver (credits) apparently knew America's cute-but-troubled sweetheart back in the day, and he offers the following advice which I'm happy to pass along:

...Unfortunately, the same thing cannot be said about "The Majority Report." Janeane and Sam might be "knowledgeable amateurs", but the emphasis has to be on the second word. They're hip, they're ironic, and too often they're an embarassment to anyone who actually knows something about the subject at hand. This is particularly true with Janeane, who is making it more and more apparent that she never took a political science or history class in college.

...Janeane seems to have gotten interested in conspiracy theories, and she is more and more sounding (to me) like the left wing version of Art Bell (though she has yet to say that Richard Nixon was conspiring with space aliens). Her lack of educated background is starting to show, and I say that sadly, because she has the ability to attract the "non-expert" political junkies and get them involved, which is a good thing. But not when we feed them cheap baloney and tell them it's steak!

Janeane - in case you (or your researcher) read this, listen up: There has never ever been a successful conspiracy, because the more people who are involved, the greater the likelihood some moron is going to brag to someone about what they are doing. When I was writing cop shows, a very good cop I know said "we only catch the dumb ones, the ones who talk." For conspiracies of the level you are interested in to work, you are talking about several thousand people not talking. Sorry, it's not in human nature for that to happen...

Posted in Janeane at June 3, 2005 11:51 AM

Comments

Successful conspiracies are those that succeed in their aims and never ever get noticed. That kinda undercuts the cocksure McKelvey Cleaver idea that there's never ever been a successful conspiracy.

By the way, his story about the very good cop who advised "We only catch the dumb ones." is a hack crimewriting cliche stolen from 1940s B movies, which themselves stole it from 1920s pulp fiction magazines. Cleaver apparently figured he could swipe it without getting noticed.

Posted by: ToughGuy at June 4, 2005 04:12 PM