Yes, I know not everyone is a fan of David Cole.
But he was there, so at least read his take:
There are several reasons [Friends of Abe] never lived up to its potential. We drank a lot. Members loved getting loaded and bullshitting each other until 2am. Venues were chosen specifically so that Andrew Breitbart could walk home drunk without having to hail a cab, and GOP-friendly bar owners would shut out regular patrons and proclaim “open tap night” for the Abes. Believe it or not, all that drinking was simply not conducive to constructive, serious planning.
I’d say that fully half the times I saw or heard Breitbart on radio or TV, he was high.
During one guest-hosting gig for Dennis Miller, he was completely incoherent. It was too embarrassing to listen to.
It’s admirable to want to “engage the culture,” and kind of glamorous and fun to have meetings about it with all your Hollywood celebrity friends.
It’s less glamourous but ultimately more laudable to intervene on behalf of a guy with a wife and four kids who’s clearly drinking himself to death, and who you all agree is so brilliant and important and shit.
Great job, everyone!
Oh, and yeah:
Another reason: “faith-based films,” a fairly dependable genre, weren’t in play for Abe consideration. There were too many atheist libertarians and secular (okay, atheist) Jews in the mix, who privately viewed their cross-wearing and churchgoing fellow Abes as irrational Neanderthals. There was a truce between the pro-religion and anti-religion Abes, but that armistice only survived because no one ever put it to the test.
And finally:
This has always been one of my “if I won $50 million” projects.
Ooops:
I at one point tried to bring to the screen an adaptation of the autobiography of Whittaker Chambers (a better idea than “Carol,” as the source material was solid), but part of what hampered that project was a lack of awareness among the Abes regarding who Chambers and Hiss were! And if that level of ignorance exists among Hollywood conservatives, well…it would have been a hard sell to the general public.
Interesting comment:
I think the conservatives in Hollywood miss the point. Success is not what you want. Look at the recent incident with the pizza store in Indiana; blanket condemnation from the elite of the country and massive grass roots support.
We’ve already won that kulturkampf without fighting in middle America because most people live in reality (it takes a delusional mind and life to be a leftist for the most part).
We need films that will appeal to the elite. We need the sort of propaganda that will convince the upper strata of our society to think more like us.
That’s where the battle should be directed.
