Screenplay

I’m writing a three-chord song, “The Left Wing Blues,” which will accompany an epic moving picture that has even more than the health care debate and Wall Street bonuses to keep audiences riveted.

In one scene, for instance, our hero thinks he is squared up perfectly with his target and strikes the ball flush, yet it rockets sharply to the sinister side instead of straight down the fairway. His buddy immediately places a club at his feet, which revealed that his perception of the landscape before him was severely skewed. The obvious correction is to aim at what he perceives to be the right of his target. But the mind’s eye is a terrible thing to lose, to paraphrase Dan Quayle (the Sarah Palin of his time).

Later, our hero (let’s call him the Marlboro Man) finds that rivals on the rodeo circuit are flinging their lariats with much better effect when it comes to capturing calves and tying their hooves together. The loop keeps missing the young bovine’s head to the left, falling limply to the dust of the arena. Is human growth hormone the answer? No, MM, solid citizen that he is, insists he will only take over-the-counter supplements and protein shakes.

In the middle plot point, MM confronts big government, which is trying to turn him into – gasp! – a Western European. He escapes with the help of a comely pharma/HMO lobbyist (our Bond girl). “They seek him here. They seek him there. Those Frenchies seek him everywhere. Is he in heaven? Is he in hell? That damned elusive Pimpernel.”

The climax finds MM and lobbyist (think Claudine Auger in Thunderball), guns blazing, rescuing derivatives traders clinging to George Washington’s statue at Federal Hall on Wall Street from the clutches of Mr. Big’s socialists who would confiscate well-deserved wealth made possible by fiscal deficits and taxpayer largesse. They fly to the sports books in Las Vegas and parlay their way into even more-deserved riches by correctly betting the over-under in a Hamilton Tiger Cats - Montreal Alouettes game.

The dénouement: Back on the golf course, our Bond girl points MM to the right and his ball effortlessly soars in a Ruthian blast to the far reaches of the short grass.

The sequel: if she can only correct the putting stroke and save us all from the yips and the evils Mr. Big is plotting.