2002 Not a Favorite Year With the Brady Campaign
December 1, 2002
by Joseph P. Tartaro
Executive Editor
Several years ago, Hollywood released a very enjoyable and funny movie called “My Favorite Year.” It was sort of a thinly-disguised behind-the-scenes look at the comedy writers and personalities involved in Sid Caesar’s 1950s-era television “Show of Shows.” A key element in the plot was the special appearance of a drunker former swashbuckling movie star.
I was reminded of the title of the movie because to my knowledge no one has made a “My Least Favorite Year” movie, but now certainly could.
To any interested scriptwriters, directors and producers, I would suggest that the story focus on a behind-the-scenes look at the Brady Bunch, a term I use to include the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, formerly Handgun Control Inc., and all of their anti-gun benefactors, allies and hangers-on.
The reason I think this would make a storyline for a film is that 2002 has not been a good year for the gun-grabbers, perhaps one of their worst.
Exposition Needed
For purposes of exposition, it might be smart to provide a little recent history. The characters could go back in time to show that things started to go bad for the anti-gunners in November-December 2000, when their darling presidential candidate—Al Gore—won a narrow popular vote nationwide, but lost the Electoral College Vote to George W. Bush. (The antis and their Democrat pals vowed revenge against Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and the Florida Commissioner of Elections Katherine Harris in 2002. I’ll leave it to the scriptwriters and director to decide when in the movie they want to show that Florida voters re-elected Jeb Bush and sent Harris to Congress in 2002.)
During this exposition scene, some of the actors could even discuss that while they didn’t really love Gore as much as his predecessor, Bill Clinton—who used to bring the Bradys on stage at Democratic National Conventions—they really hated Bush. After all, as governor of Texas, he had signed shall-issue concealed carry legislation—and he was supported by the National Rifle Association and other groups anti-gunners in the viewing audience could hiss at.
Attempts to move anti-gun legislation through Congress in 2001 didn’t succeed because the new President and the Republican-controlled House and Senate didn’t seem to be interested in their issue. Even the media’s push for more gun laws didn’t help. And after Sen. Jim Jeffords of Vermont bolted the Republican Party and organized with the Democrats to switch control of the Senate, their agenda still languished on Capitol Hill.
Then the unthinkable happened, and the plot for the anti-gunners really went sour. In September 2001, when the al Qaeda terrorists hijacked four airliners from their disarmed crews and passengers and turned three of them into weapons of mass destruction, nobody except the Brady Bunch wanted to talk about gun control. In fact, partly inspired by the determined resistance of some passengers of Flight 93 who thwarted the rest of the terrorist attack at the cost of their own lives, Americans began buying ammunition and handguns for defense. Try as they might, the Brady Bunch couldn’t get any traction, and things were getting worse.
Adopting “Moms”
They even had to take-in and feed and clothe the orphaned “Million” Mom Marchers. Meanwhile, to make matters worse, one of their old Handgun Control board members, monster.com billionaire Andrew McKelvey, set up a whole new organization—Americans for Gun Safety—that masqueraded its vulpine anti-gun philosophy in the sheep’s clothing of safety and “reasonable gun restrictions.”
Meanwhile, Democrats who had come to realize that anti-gun rhetoric was costing them elections, not only regionally but nationwide, stopped returning Sarah Brady’s calls—at least not in public. And not only were the Democrats trying to appear more gun-tolerant—if not friendly—but even the media edged away from anti-gun press conferences, editorials and story ideas.
At this point the movie’s music would reflect a very depressed mood for the anti-gunners, but not the worst. We’re only half-way through the story.
Cut away to a Long Island country club where wealthy foundation honchos and moguls are telling the Brady Bunch that they will keep funding them in research and studies that will support the civilian disarmament cause, and lobby to get more funding for anti-gun junk science to the Centers for Disease Control. (This proposal is advanced with a sneer as the actor notes that the public won’t realize it’s about the gun issue.)
Finally, they tell the Brady Bunch that they should keep trying to sell the story that politicians who support more gun restrictions really win elections—they don’t lose.
As we dissolve to the television network pundits predicting the outcome of the Nov. 5, 2002 elections, ominous sounds are heard from the street. The voting public seems more focused on personal and national survival in an age of terrorism, even as the economy overheated by greed and duplicity, cools down. Pro- and anti-gun slogans are heard off camera.
It’s daylight saving time in most of the country, of course, and as Election Day grows darker, returns begin to trickle in from all across the country. The news from New Jersey, where the Democrats pulled a last-minute switch from a losing anti-gunner to a winning anti-gunner, is good. The Brady Bunch and their media shills are happy.
But then the news grows increasingly dire. The Democrats who feigned a pro-gun position by attending trap and skeet events with television and newspaper cameras are losing. Pro-gun Republicans retain seats, and as the evening wears on, gain seats. This happens in spite of the loss of a couple of pro-gun GOP Senate seats.
It doesn’t take long before it is apparent that even a former vice president, senator and presidential candidate is losing in Minnesota. The Republicans have not only kept control of the House of Representatives, they have extended their majority in a reversal of history. Then they have regained control of the Senate.
The Brady Bunch is thunderstruck. Daschle is no longer Senate majority leader; Lott is back. Leahy—with Schumer at his side—is no longer chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee; Hatch is back.
The Brady Bunch sifts through the House and state election returns to draft a press release that says people who support gun control win elections. They take it to Peter Jennings at ABC and he rejects it, telling them this time it won’t wash. Even the “Beltway sniper” didn’t help.
As the movie near its end, we would see the unhappy anti-gun protagonists, gloomily gathered in an expensive Washington, DC, restaurant, drowning their sorrows in their French 75s. One of the players suggests that all is lost to the anti-gunners, and suggests they seek newer and greener pastures to a dubious table. Some are distraught enough to consider suicide with stale marshmallows.
But the sunlight bursts through again and the music ends on a hopeful note. Sens. Charles Schumer (played by David Paymer) and Hillary Rodham Clinton (played by Barbra Streisand) lead a troop of Democratic presidential candidates and media personalities up to the table. Schumer-Paymer promises that the anti-gun movement will rise again, and Clinton-Streisand belts out a soaring melody as the curtain falls.
By the way, I have a casting suggestion, too. The part of Al Gore could be played by Alec Baldwin. And remembering Angela Lansbury’s stellar performance in “The Manchurian Candidate,” I think she would be able to portray Sarah Brady to a “T,” regardless of how she may really feel about the individual right to keep and bear arms.
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