If the Trump Assassination Attempt were a movie script.

 From Joseph Mallozzi on X.

Thanks for the script.  Overall, the plotting feels contrived and, at times, defies logic, so we’re going to require a fairly extensive rewrite for the second draft.

Our biggest issue with the script is the characterization of the Secret Service who come across as so inept that it defies credulity.  Specifics to follow.

Could we put the building that the shooter climbs onto OUTSIDE a proper security zone instead of the current Pac Man configuration that only excludes his position?

The Secret Service Director character seems to lack the intelligence one would expect from someone in their position.   Please have her come up with something more plausible than the “too slopey!" excuse for why no armed agents were stationed on the rooftop.  Let’s work a little harder to create a more clever explanation for the egregious lapse in professional conduct, one that our audience could buy into.  Maybe the shooter incapacitated the agents inside the building through non-lethal means, say a knock-out gas or drugs in their water supply.  This could also explain how the shooter could have carried the ladder over, propped it up to the building, and climbed up without being noticed  by law enforcement.

Speaking of the ladder, can we make it a lightweight retractable model instead of the 20 foot heavy version he is currently lugging around in the script?  Or, better yet, could it already be there?  Maybe the security personnel were planning to use it to climb onto the roof later or repairs were being effected to the roof earlier that morning.

Could we come up with an alternative explanation for why the Secret Service is curtailed rather than the current “He had to share with the President’s wife”?

I’m bumping on the idea of the Secret Servie outsourcing the protection of a Presidential candidate to a local police detachment of 12 officers.  Can we double that number?

Can we lose the scene where the shooter passes through the security screening hours before the shooting with a rangefinder and is clocked by the Secret Service  but nobody does anything about it?  It makes them look incompetent.

Also lose the beat where the shooter’s family contacts law enforcement to warn them that their son has gone missing with an AR-15 three hours before the assassination attempt.

Can we not have the shooter spotted on the rooftop by the attendees?  While I appreciate your attempt to ramp up the tension, having 30 minutes pass between the moment people point him out to when he finally takes the shot really feels like a stretch.  Instead of all these people spotting him and shouting at authorities to no avail, how about making it a lone child instead?  Say a three year old loses their balloon and watches it drift skywards, past the rooftop, where he sees the man on the roof.  He turns to his mother and says: “Mommy, there’s a man on the roof!”  But when his mother looks, there is no one there as the shooter has ducked down and the roof fully obscures him.  His mother, of course, dismisses her son's comment as the product of a child's imagination.

Still bumping on why the sniper takes so long to shoot if he has spotted the threat (20 minutes earlier! Come on.).  As a trained professional, he would have never allowed the shooter to get those shots off.  The explanation that he was awaiting the green light from his superiors is a huge buy.  I’d suggest some sort of communication breakdown but even that doesn’t really feel right.  Let’s think on it.

The fact that the Secret Service allows the Presidential candidate onto the stage after an alert about the shooter goes out on an “all tactical channel" is a huge plot hole.

The shooter character feels cliche.  Single young white male, bullied through high school, elects to act out by…trying to assassinate the Presidential frontrunner?  Why?  Let’s dig into his motivation a little more, come up with something that doesn’t rely on the tired “crazy loner” trope.  Also, I have to admit to laughing out loud with the reveal that he is a registered Republican, an unintentionally hilarious twist that, I’m afraid, feels a little perfunctory and is not going to fool the audience.  Having a record of him donating to a progressive committe just muddles the backstory here.  The explosives in the car and bomb-making materials at his home also feel a little on the nose.  Finally, could we get this guy SOME sort of internet presence?  After all, he’s 20-years-old, not some octagenerian Luddite.  Maybe an unremarkable instagram account or occasional post on reddit. If you want to lean into the “crazed conservative” angle, maybe give him an account on the X platform and have him retweet Mitt Romney or Adam Kinzinger.

Having the media break a story, days later, of a plot by Iran to kill the Presidential frontrunner is confusing, unncessary, and, when you think about it, actually makes the Secret Service look even worse because you’re effectively saying they were expecting an attack, heightened the security detail, and were STILL caught with their pants down.  Suggest swapping out Iran for Russia in keeping with the current trend.

The DHS Secretary feels like your typical cartoon villain.  Is there a way to humanize him a little?  Maybe give him a funny dog?  One of those Chinese Cresteds would be great!

The t.v. host that hints at the possibility the assassination was staged is great goofy comic relief!  Just be careful not to make her too over-the-top delusional/loopy.  A little goes a long way here.

I do have to admit that the revelation shadowy individuals shorted millions of shares of the Presidential frontrunner’s company to, presumably, cash in on his expected demise was very interesting as it adds another layer of intrigue, hinting at that broader, more insidious conspiracy you’ve already layered in.  Would be great to hint at their comeuppance, the significant financial loss they incurred when their plans fells through.

That’s it for now.  Looking forward to seeing how you address these notes in the rewrite!

July 14 is Bastille Day

If you're here for Jonah Goldberg's classic article on the subject, here you go: The French are Revolting.

Arise children of the fatherland

The day of glory has arrived

Against us tyranny's

Bloody standard is raised

Listen to the sound in the fields

The howling of these fearsome soldiers

They are coming into our midst

To cut the throats of your sons and consorts

To arms citizens Form your battalions

March, march

Let impure blood

Water our furrows

~ Claude-Joseph Rouget de Lisle (1760-1836) ("La Marseillaise", first verse translated into English. Six more follow, all more or less equally bloodthirsty. *

The Storming of the Bastille by Jean-Pierre Houël

France has neither winter nor summer nor morals - apart from these drawbacks it is a fine country. 

~ Mark Twain (1835-1910) (Anderson, ed., Mark Twain's Notebooks and Journals, Vol. 2, Notebook 18)

Old France , weighed down with history, prostrated by wars and revolutions, endlessly vacillating from greatness to decline, but revived, century after century, by the genius of renewal.

~ Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970) (War Memoirs, Vol. 3, Ch. 7)

The Bastille was later demolished - the Place de la Bastille

 sits where the fortress once stood

July 14th is Bastille Day (wiki), which commemorates the storming of the ancient royal prison of that name in Paris on 14 July 1789, an event which marked the beginning of the French Revolution. That storming was, of course, more symbolic than substantial - as Jonah Goldberg points out in his classic Bastille Day column, it consisted of "the capture of an almost entirely empty prison, the cold-blooded murder of six unarmed soldiers, and the execution of one French governor already captured by the mob". On that day the Bastille held only seven inmates: four forgers, two madmen, and a young rake who had displeased his father. All were freed.

The Marseillais volunteers departing, sculpted on the Arc de Triomphe

Formally known as the Bastille Saint-Antoine, the fortress was built during the Hundred Years’ War to defend the eastern approaches of Paris from English attacks. It Consisted of eight 100-foot high towers, all linked together by equally tall walls, surrounded by 80 foot wide moat. By 1789 the Bastille was actually little used and was scheduled to be demolished, part of the reason why there were so few prisoners there that day.

*La Marseillaise, France's stirring national anthem, was written in Strasbourg on 25 April 1792 by French captain Claude-Joseph Rouget de Lisle and originally titled the "Marching Song of the Army of the Rhine." It gained instant popularity as a rallying song and gained its latter-day name from being first sung in the streets of Paris by newly arrived troops from Marseilles. The remaining verses are available at Wikipedia. 

La Marseillaise was banned in both Vichy and German-occupied France during World War II, and also during the 19th-century French Empire under Napoleon III because of its revolutionary sentiments.  

Has there every been a more stirring rendition than the one at Rick's "Café Americaine" in Casablanca?

Related post: French King Louis XVI was guillotined on January 21, 1793. Here's Allan Sherman (because if you're of a certain age it's inevitable to think of Allan Sherman when you hear La Marseillaise:

One of my favorite Father's Day stories (NSFW- language)

This is from Justin Halpern, author of Sh*t My Dad Says, and is funny and weirdly touching. NSFW.

You Take What You Need From Your Father

Father’s Day has never been a big deal at my house. My dad hates celebrations. He goes through the motions for Christmas because it means a lot to my mom. He’ll put up with Easter because it means he gets to eat ham. “You can pretty much get to do whatever you want if you give me ham,” he’s said many times in my life. But Father’s Day is technically his holiday, and therefore he feels he has the right to squash it in our house. 

“Anyone can fucking procreate, and most eventually do. I refuse to celebrate a statistical probability,” he announced on Father’s Day when I was seventeen.

I was about to graduate from high school, and my relationship with my dad during the last year had been rocky. Everything we did seemed to annoy one another. I dealt with the friction by avoiding being in the house while he was there, and he dealt with it by repeating the phrase, “You mind? I’m watching the fucking Nature Channel.” 

So when he told me on the morning of Father’s Day that year that he would not partake in a celebration, frankly, I was fine with it. But my mother was not. That night I sat on my bed reading a brochure from San Diego State University, where I was heading in the fall, when the door to my room opened and my father entered.

“Sorry to interrupt whatever it is you’re doing,” he said.

“I’m just looking at some of the classes they have at State,” I said. 

“Oh yeah? Like what?” 

“You want to know?” 

“Ah, fuck it, not really. Listen, your mother thinks you’re going to go off to college and hate me and then we’re not going to be friends again until I’m dying and I got a wad of shit in my pants. That’s bullshit right?” 

“Ah – “ 

“So, look, I’m not an easy guy to get along with. I know that. But you know I would murder another human being for you if it came down to it. Murder. Fucking homicide. If it came down to it.” 

“Why would you need to do that for me?” I said. 

“I don’t know. Maybe you get mixed up in some gambling shit or you screw some guy’s wife or – don’t matter. Not my point. My point is: I may seem like an asshole, but I mean well. And I want to tell you a story,” he said, taking a seat on the foot of my bed before quickly jumping up.

“Your bed smells like shit. Where can I sit that doesn’t smell like shit?” 

I pointed to my desk chair, which was covered with dirty clothes. He brushed the clothes onto the ground and collapsed in the chair. 

“Just for your information, this chair also smells like shit. This isn’t a non-­‐shit-­‐smelling option. In case a girl comes over or something.” 

“What’s your story, Dad?” I snapped. 

“I ever tell you how I mangled my arm?” he asked, pointing to the large, white crescent-­‐shaped scar that practically circled his entire elbow.

“Yeah, lots of times. You were, like, ten and you were on the farm and you fell off a tobacco wagon, then the wagon rolled over it.” 

“Right. But I ever tell you what happened after the wagon rolled over it?”

“Maybe.” 

He leaned back in the chair. “I was laying on the ground, bones poking through my skin. Your Aunt Debbie is just going ape-­‐shit. They pop me in our car, and we drive forty-­‐five minutes to Lexington to the doctor’s. This is 1946 Kentucky, and my town was a shit stain on a map so we had to drive to the city. So the doc sees me, dresses the wounds best he can, and puts me up in the hospital bed. At this point I’m about to pass out on account of the pain.” 

“I almost had that happen once,” I interrupted. 

No you didn’t. So anyway, I’m lying in my hospital bed when your Grandpa gets there. And your Grandpa was a tough son of a bitch. He wasn’t like how you knew him; he softened up in his nineties. So Grandpa grabs the doc, and your Aunt Debbie and the two of them go outside my room. I can hear them talking, but they don’t know that. The doc tells your Grandpa that they think there’s a good chance that an infection has already taken hold in my arm. And Grandpa, in that scratchy voice he’s got, asks what that means. And the doc tells him it means they have some medicine they can give me that might kill the infection, but it might not, and if it doesn’t, I’ll die.” 

“You heard the doctor say that?” 

“Yep.” 

“What’d you do?”

“What do you mean? I had fucking bones coming out of my elbow. I didn’t do shit. So the doc tells Grandpa that there’s a 50/50 chance the medicine works. But then he says there’s another option. He tells Grandpa if they amputate my arm at the elbow, there’s a 100 percent chance that I’ll live.” 

“What did Grandpa say?” I asked, inching toward the edge of the bed. 

“He said, ‘Give him the medicine.’ And the doc says, ‘But there’s a 50 percent chance he’ll die.’ Then it’s quiet for a bit. Nobody making a fucking peep. Then I hear Grandpa clear his throat and say, ‘Then let him die. There ain’t no room in this world for a one-­‐armed farmer.”

My dad fell silent and leaned back in the chair, stretching his legs out.

My dad hadn’t told me many stories about his father at this point, and I wasn’t quite sure how he felt about the man. This was the first time I had gotten a glimpse.       

“Man, I’m really sorry, Dad.” 

“Sorry for what?” he asked, his face morphing into a look of confusion as he sat up straight in the chair. 

“Well, that’s, I don’t know, that’s really… messed up. I can’t believe Grandpa did that.” 

“What in the fuck are you talking about? The man saved my arm! They were going to cut off my arm and he saved it. That’s my point: Grandpa could be an asshole sometimes but when it came down to it he was there for me.” 

“That’s what you took from that?” 

“Hell yes. I don’t know what else you were expecting me to take. Imagine me with one goddamned arm. Be a fucking disaster. Anyway, just like Grandpa cared about me, I care about you and I don’t want you out there hating me, cause I don’t hate you. I love the shit out of you.” 

He stood up, ironing his pants’ front with his hands. 

“Jesus H. Christ, do something about the fucking smell in this room.” 

Fourteen years later, on this Father’s Day, despite his reluctance to celebrate the holiday, I’d like to thank my dad for everything he’s done for me and advise him: If a wagon ever crushes me, let’s not roll the dice. Cut off my arm, Dad. There’s more than enough room in this world for a one-­‐armed writer. 

~Justin Halpern June 2011

“Kids, you tried your best and you failed miserably. The lesson is, never try.” Parenting advice from Homer Simpson

For fellow Simpsons fans:

“No, no, no, Lisa. If adults don’t like their jobs, they don’t go on strike. They just go in every day and do it really half-assed. That’s the American Way.”

“OK, son. Just remember to have fun out there today, and if you lose, I’LL KILL YOU!”

“You tried your best and you failed miserably. The lesson is, never try.”

“The code of the schoolyard, Marge! The rules that teach a boy to be a man. Let’s see. Don’t tattle. Always make fun of those different from you. Never say anything, unless you’re sure everyone feels exactly the same way you do. What else…”

“Kids, you tried your best and you failed miserably. The lesson is, never try.”

“When I look at the smiles on all the children’s faces, I just know they’re about to jab me with something.”

“I have to work overtime at work instead of spending time with my wife and kids, which is what I want.”

“Kids are great, Apu. You can teach them to hate the things you hate and they practically raise themselves now-a-days, you know, with the internet and all.”

“I think the saddest day of my life was when I realized I could beat my Dad at most things, and Bart experienced that at the age of four.”

“Don’t eat me. I have a wife and kids. Eat them.”

“Marge, don’t discourage the boy! Weaseling out of things is important to learn. It’s what separates us from the animals! Except the weasel.”

“What do we need a psychiatrist for? We know our kid is nuts. “

“It’s not easy to juggle a pregnant wife and a troubled child, but somehow I managed to squeeze in 8 hours of TV a day.”

“Remember as far as anyone knows, we’re a nice normal family.”

“Marriage is like a coffin and each kid is another nail.”

“The key to parenting is don’t overthink it. Because overthinking leads to … what were talking about?”

Related:

Funny signs from The Simpsons (and links to lots more).

An archive of Bart's blackboard writing. The graphic below is from 2012 - click on it to zoom.

Mark Steyn on remembering the lessons from Magna Carta: The Field Where Liberty Was Sown

This 2015 post was written on the occasion of the 800th anniversary of the signing of Magna Carta; I no longer see this on Mark's website, so I've copied it here from an archive. Here's the original link - if it starts working again I'll delete this post and point to it.

The most important anniversary this year falls on Monday June 15th, marking the day, eight centuries ago, when a king found himself in a muddy field on the River Thames near Windsor Castle with the great foundational document of modern liberty under his nose and awaiting his seal. Here’s what I had to say about it earlier this year:

The world has come a long way since Magna Carta, and not always for the best. A couple of years back, testifying to the House of Commons in Ottawa about Canada’s (now repealed) censorship law, I said the following:

Section 13 is at odds with this country’s entire legal inheritance, stretching back to Magna Carta. Back then, if you recall–in 1215–human rights meant that the King could be restrained by his subjects. Eight hundred years later, Canada’s pseudo-human rights apparatchiks of the commission have entirely inverted that proposition, and human rights now means that the subjects get restrained by the Crown in the cause of so-called collective rights that can be regulated only by the state.

I liked it better the old way. Real rights are like Magna Carta: restraints on state power. Too many people today understand the word “rights” to mean baubles and trinkets a gracious sovereign bestows on his subjects – “free” health care, “free” community college, “safe spaces” from anyone saying anything beastly – all of which require a massive, coercive state regulatory regime to enforce.

But, to give it its full name, Magna Carta Libertatum (my italics – I don’t think they had ’em back then) gets it the right way round. It was in some respects a happy accident. In 1215, a bunch of chippy barons were getting fed up with King John. In those days, in such circumstances, the malcontents would usually replace the sovereign with a pliable prince who’d be more attentive to their grievances. But, having no such prince to hand, the barons were forced to be more inventive, and so they wound up replacing the King with an idea, and the most important idea of all – that even the King is subject to the law.

On this 800th anniversary, that’s a lesson worth re-learning. Restraints on state power are increasingly unfashionable among the heirs to Magna Carta: in America, King Barack decides when he wakes up of a morning what clauses of ObamaCare or US immigration law he’s willing to observe or waive according to royal whim; his heir, Queen Hillary, operates on the principle that laws are for the other 300 million Americans, not her. In the birthplace of Magna Carta, a few miles from that meadow at Runnymede, David Cameron’s constabulary leans on newsagents to cough up the names and addresses of troublesome citizens who’ve committed the crime of purchasing Charlie Hebdo.

The symbolism was almost too perfect when Mr Cameron went on TV with David Letterman, and was obliged to admit that he had no idea what the words “Magna Carta” meant. Magna Carta Libertatum: The Great Charter of Liberties. I’m happy to say Mr Cameron’s Commonwealth cousins across the Atlantic in Ottawa are more on top of things: One of the modestly heartening innovations of Stephen Harper’s ministry is that, when immigrants to Canada take the oath of citizenship, they’re now given among other things a copy of Magna Carta.

Why? Because everything flows therefrom – from England’s Glorious Revolution to the US Constitution and beyond. It’s part of the reason why the English-speaking world, in contrast to Continental Europe, has managed to sustain its freedoms across the generations – at least until now. As John Robson, my old colleague from Conrad Black’s Hollinger group, puts it:

All the rights we cherish, from due process of law to elected representatives, trace back to it. It has been assailed time and again and always defended. It’s why we have rights today. But that story needs to be told again and again or it will be lost and with it our freedom.

Security of the person, property rights, religious freedom, due process… The core animating principles of modern free societies began in that muddy field in Runnymede eight centuries ago. That’s why it’s the most important anniversary of the year: when the pampered, solipsistic beneficiaries of an 800-year inheritance start to lose the habits of liberty, only darkness lies ahead. Better to re-learn the old lessons while we still can.