(overlapping voices)
(woman) Stand by, lights, forcue one.
(man) Welcome to "The Tom Dobbs Show." Please have yourtickets ready forthe ushers.
(overlapping voices continue)
Please turn off all cell phones and pagers.
Take your seats, please. Tom Dobbs will speak to you before the show.
(man) This story might fall underthe heading of "one thing leads to another."
It started on August 20th.
At 7 p.m. Tom Dobbs, who had a successful cable show featuring political comedy,
was talking to the audience during the warm-up routine prior to the taping of his show.
Thanks for coming. This isn't the actual show. The cameras are pointing at nothing
and some critics have said that too.
But I'm just here to talk to you, warm up the audience, a little bit of foreplay.
- Sorry. - (laughter)
I'll back up now for harassment reasons.
The government said recently... Well, a lot of people said that we're cutting back spending.
But NASA actually spent $28 million
to develop a fountain pen to write upside down in space in zero gravity.
The Russians solved the same problem
(Russian accent) with five-cent pencil.
Very easy, writes upside down, zero gravity. After two cases of vodka, still writing.
If you have the GPS, be very careful. I bought a Mercedes recently with the talking GPS.
"Up ahead, take a right." I opened the door and the car went, "Are you Jewish?"
But soon all of your appliances will talk to each other.
You'll get on the scale and the scale will go, "Psstl I've talked to the microwave."
(laughter)
I notice many of you with little cell phones. Soon they'll get so small they'Iljust be inside...
Hold on, I got a call. Hello.
- No, I'll make it louder. Hold on. - (laughter)
Wait a minute, I'm taking a picture.
Oh, wait. I got mail.
It was during a Q and A that a woman made a statement.
- Yes, ma'am. - Hi.
I feel so frustrated with the political system and my friends say the same thing all the time.
Maybe you should run for President.
(laughs)
The comment was quickly forgotten and minutes later the show got under way.
Senator, I think the public is pretty frustrated with the polarization of the parties
and lack of accountability.
It's crazy. A woman tonight said I should run for President.
(cheerlng)
Maybe I should.
Within three hours there were four million emails endorsing Dobbs for President.
Overthe course of the next week, Dobbs mentioned this four more times.
The internet was on fire.
Over eight million emails.
It was a grass-roots movement fueled by the power of the internet
and the cult of personality.
(woman) Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for your patience.
We have a great show for you tonight, so without any further ado...
(man) On September 2nd something very, very unusual happens.
Tomorrow I will officially announce my candidacy for President of the United States.
Did you write that? Where's the punch line?
Maybe it was sheer vanity, maybe it was a political stunt,
or maybe it was because Tom believed his audience demanded it. Who knows?
As Tom Dobbs'manager I was as shocked as everyone around me
and I wasn't exactly pleased.
Does this mean I'm out of a job?
Shortly thereafter, Tom Dobbs was on the ballot in 13 states.
That was part one of the unusual progression of events.
On the West Coast the second domino toppled over.
(TV) Voterconfusion...
Endless recounts...
Unreliable results...
Democracy held hostage.
In today's Amerlca, technology empowers the public in nearly everything they do.
And now, voting with confidence.
Introducing the Delacroy voting system.
Congress decided that Delacroy Systems would have the national franchise
for computerized voting in the coming presidential election.
In hindsight, not one of their better decisions.
Forease of voting, speed and accuracy of vote.
It eliminates long lines and confusion at the polls.
(man) It was of course a majorcoup forthis Silicon Valley-based company.
When the dubbed versions come in I need to see the contracts.
Delacroy.
As C.E.O. Of Delacroy, James Hemmings lovingly watched his stock rlse.
In the bowels of the building, something else was about to take place.
I got the ballot from San Mateo so I thought I'd run my own election
with the referendums, propositions and just add the candidates' names.
Why?
We've never run a configuration like this ballot, so I thought I'd give it a test drive.
Oh, God. I think I burned my lip.
It's like democracy on the head of a microchip.
Yes, but no matter how you slice it, it's what you're voting for and not how easy it is to vote.
Whether she was being diligent in her work,
whether she was obsessive-compulsive, or whether she didn't have a personal life, who knows?
But late that night she found something that seemed very wrong.
Mills, I voted for you three times as much as I voted for President Kellogg.
Why did the President win?
Like a good, dedicated employee, she sent an email to C.E.O. James Hemmings.
She wrote that something was wrong.
She used phrases like "a glitch in the system," "compatibility problem," things like that.
Hemmings read the email
and reacted as a C.E.O. Whose stock fortune was wrapped up in his newest enterprise.
If there really was a problem it was too late to correct it,
so he ignored the memo and hoped the problem would go away.
(Tom) I've read a lot of Op-Ed pieces recently saying that Tom Dobbs doesn't talk about the issues.
Read more by clicking or downloading this file:
http://www.veryabc.cn/movie/uploads/script/ManoftheYear.txt
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本帖最后由 Robin 于 2007-12-6 02:17 编辑 ]
