Today’s Morning Jolt, hitting e-mailboxes now, also features a look at how the growth and maturation of “Generation X” suggests “Generation Y” and “the Millennials” may have a quite different outlook on life and politics within a decade or two.

How Generation X Shows Hope for Generation Y, and ‘Reality Bites’

Flipping through the channels the other night, I came across Reality Bites, a modestly successful little 1994 romantic comedy that somehow came to be considered one of the iconic films of the 1990s, or at least one of the films that came to define the reputation of “Generation X” — those born between the early 1960s and early 1980s.

A little while back, the great Mary Katharine Ham brilliantly dissected how the film looks from the perspective of today: the characters’ self-absorption and whining, the constant smoking, the grunge soundtrack, and the dated notion that Ethan Hawke’s grungy bar-band slacker is the hero, and that Ben Stiller’s kind-hearted but ambitious yuppie executive at an MTV-style network is the wrong guy for Winona Ryder. (Like MKH, I’m just going to use the actors’ names.)

Some modern analyses of the film like this one (funny but NSFW language) note the irony that the film is about the frustrations of unemployed or under-employed 20-somethings, and their fears that their dreams will never be realized . . . in the early-to-mid 1990s. That early-90s economy looks like Nirvana compared to today (no pun intended, but I’m pretty proud of it now that I realize it) and we know that in a year or two, Silicon Valley and the dot-com boom are about to turbocharge the job market that the characters find so horrific.

Looking back, we in Generation X had it pretty good. Not only was the U.S. economy roaring at the time, but opportunities for young workers were pretty widespread in the dot-com era. As costly as higher education was then, it looks positively inexpensive compared to today. It was a time of relative peace, when U.S. military actions in Somalia, Haiti, and the Balkans could be largely ignored by most of the public, and few foresaw the horrors of 9/11 lurking around the corner.

“Back in my day, son, before the Internet, we hung out on strangely unsecured building roofs, drinking beers and playing guitar, brooding.”

Despite the clunky landline phones, flannel, 1-900 psychic hotlines, and Lisa Loeb on the soundtrack, “Reality Bites” is less about a moment in our cultural life than a moment in the modern career trajectory. A large chunk of Generation X came out of high school or college with big dreams of success — high expectations fueled, in part, by the boom of the 1980s and the surprise end of the Cold War. We left the shelter of academia and entered the real world . . . and, for many of us, at least initially, the real world just kicked our asses. Only professional athletes leave college to step into their dream job. Almost everyone else starts at the bottom, interning or one step above interning, and gasps when they realize the distance between themselves and that dream job. Try and fail enough times, and you begin to fear the dream job might be just a dream. And how much does a hidden fear of failure fuel those pronouncements of disdain for “selling out”?

Of course, as fun as it is to mock Ethan Hawke and Winona Ryder’s insufferable dismissal of any type of compromise on the road to success as “selling out,” there is a genuine, legitimate anxiety that those characters and the film express.

A lot of us feel some sort of creative impulse, and desire to create something — a book, a painting, a song, a sculpture, a film — that stands out and is recognized for its excellence, its insight, its ability to stir emotions in others. And we fear going through the effort and struggle of the creative process only to lose our creation, or to have it co-opted by others who just want to use it to sell things. You fear that just as you’re about to make a key point, and establish some sort of connection with the audience —

DON’T FORGET TO BOOK YOUR CABIN NOW FOR THE NATIONAL REVIEW NORWEGIAN FJORDS CRUISE! DON’T DELAY! ACT NOW! CABINS ARE RUNNING OUT!

Anyway, as I was saying, both this film and another one of my mid-90s favorites, Grosse Pointe Blank, deal with the fear of spending years pursuing a career only to wake up one day and realize you hate what you do. Several characters in Reality Bites describe the divorces and frustrated dreams of their parents, and seem determined to avoid those mistakes — yet their preferred option is to not try.

Even then, the movie has to cheat to make the “selling out” option look so unappealing and bohemian rebelliousness look so appealing. A major plot point is that Clearly-MTV-But-Not-Called-MTV-for-Legal-Reasons executive Stiller takes a videotape of Ryder’s documentary, and shows it to network executives in New York, who he says are thrilled. But at a screening party in Houston, she’s shocked to find her earnest exploration of her housemates’ life challenges — awaiting the results of an AIDS test, the gay one coming out to his mother, etc. — has been heavily edited into crass pabulum.

Stiller says he didn’t know it would be edited that way either. So we’re to believe that nobody watched the program they were about to screen at the party? Huh? (I suppose Stiller could be lying.) Winona’s reaction is to storm out of the party, hurt and betrayed . . . instead of trying to salvage some of her original vision. (Did she sign a contract? Is this the final cut? All of these questions are ignored, to serve the plot’s requirement that Stiller is the “bad guy” or at least the wrong guy, because he’s a corporate sellout.)

After watching enough movies where the characters spent almost no time at work and live in lavish apartments, it’s refreshing to watch one where the protagonists worry about paying the phone bill. But even here, the movie cheats by suggesting that stealing from your parents will do in a pinch. Winona’s character gets cash from motorists and pays for their gasoline on her father’s gas-station credit card, running up $900 in charges. [MKH calculated that would be $1,400 today.] The closing lines of the movie play the dad’s reaction as sort of a joke. He might as well say, “Lucy, you got some ’splainin’ to do!”

Why am I writing at great length about a 19-year-old movie? Because the criticisms of Generation X back in the 1990s — they’re lazy, they’re educated but lack ambition and drive, they’re over-privileged whiners — aren’t that different from what we hear about Generation Y today. (To the extent one can generalize about an entire generation based on survey data, Generation X is pretty hard-working.) A lot of conservatives talk about today’s 20-somethings in fatalist terms, as if they’re all Occupy-protesting, Obama-backing hipsters with six figures of college debt from their post-graduate degrees in Puppetry Studies who want to enjoy a perpetual adolescence and free birth control.

Generation X grew up and got to work; 65 percent work full-time, 10 percent work part-time. What’s more, 82 percent are homeowners, 74 percent have children, 70 percent are married, 66 percent have a 401(k) or other retirement plans, and only 6 percent live with their parents. Perhaps most surprising, 29 percent reported making $100,000 or more annually. To be conservative, you usually have to have something you want to conserve.

Of course, Generation X’s maturation process had some help — that booming economy of the 1990s and about a decade and a half of policies under Clinton and Bush that fueled that steady growth. With the policies of this administration in place, who knows when we’ll next see steady growth and serious job creation. In fact, those policies may actually be impeding the process that prompts young people to drift towards the right as they age:

The U.S. birth rate has generally fallen since the Great Recession began in 2007, and some of the sharpest drops have been among women in the 20s. The birth rate for women ages 20 to 24 hit a record low of 85.3 births per 1,000 women in 2011, according to the most recent detailed data available from the Centers for Disease Control. For women ages 25 to 29, the 2011 birth rate of 107.2 births per 1,000 women was the lowest since 1976.

The drop comes amid a longer term trend toward women having their children later in life. The average age for a woman having her first child was 25.6 years old in 2011, up from 21.4 years old in 1970, according to the CDC.

It also has coincided with an excruciatingly long period of high unemployment and weak economic growth.

No kidding.

I figured this section of today’s Jolt would bring more “you sound like one of those miserable feminists who hate men appreciating the beauty of women” e-mails, but the response has been pretty positive so far.

Why I’m Wary of Even Good-Natured Pundit Beauty Contests

John Hawkins and the guys at Right Wing News are running their annual contest selecting “The 20 Hottest Conservative Women In the New Media.”

The guys who are doing this are not bad guys, but I don’t think these sorts of contests are such a good idea.

On the one hand, we’re fooling ourselves every time we deny the obvious, that attractiveness is a huge factor in human behavior. (“Really? And you let yourself go out of the house looking like that? And that haircut — what, did you put your head under a lawnmower?” Shut up, Jonah’s couch! Your snark is supposed to stay in the Goldberg File!) And I’ll bet a doughnut that the scales say I shouldn’t eat that none of the women mentioned in this contest are offended about being nominated.

On the other hand . . .

I realize I shouldn’t presume to speak on any of these women’s behalf — some of them are friends, and they’re more than capable of speaking for themselves! — but I’d note that none of them set out to be considered notable for their appearance. We can say they’re beautiful enough to be models, but they didn’t choose to be models — or actresses or any other profession in which your appearance is your primary purpose. I presume that if they had wanted to pursue those different fields, they would have done so, and they haven’t. So I wonder how flattering it really is to assess a Michelle Malkin or a Mary Katharine Ham or Dana Perino and to respond . . . “Wow, you’re HOT!”

Yes, but they have limited control over that, and again, at the risk of speaking on their behalf, that’s not what they came here to do. Some of their attractiveness is genetics, and the rest is a sense of style and taking good care of themselves. They’re writers, reporters, authors, activists and analysts and they do stuff, and it’s probably more appropriate to view them and assess them based on their actions, not their attractiveness.

Of course, none of the guys running this contest would say we shouldn’t appreciate their actions, and I’m sure they appreciate those actions. But notice the nomination list consists of the womens’ names, affiliations . . . and then big photos of them. Not what they’ve accomplished, awards, and so on. And the contest isn’t saying they’re the best, having the most impact, most dedicated, or any other measure. It’s the “hottest.”

If you’ve ever checked out the comments section of just about any blog discussing a female conservative pundit, you know the usual vile comments are even more vile than usual, dissecting the woman’s appearance in detail. (I’m sure all of those commenters are comparable to Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.) I’m not saying this contest is quite like these repugnant comments, but if women in our industry have to endure being judged on their appearances every day, both overtly and subtly, it doesn’t seem very empathetic to formalize the process, pick out 17 or so for particular praise, and then run a contest to see who is hottest. I mean, there are dozens of conservative women in new media out there who didn’t get picked, and who have just been told, quietly, “yeah, apparently not enough people think you’re not.”

The other thing is . . . You’ve heard the phrase, “Washington is Hollywood for ugly people.” (Origin of the cliché discussed here.) Permit me to stand up for “ugly people” for a moment.

Most of us came out of an appearance-obsessed and status-obsessed subculture called “high school.” Maybe you’re one of the lucky ones who always felt okay about how you looked; sometimes, you go through it looking like this:

Hopefully somewhere in high school, or maybe after high school, you find something you’re good at and you thrive in it, and you realize your value as a person goes well beyond what other people think of your appearance. It’s always a little sad when someone doesn’t move beyond this measurement of self-worth, because our appearances change, no matter how hard we try.

Look, attractive people. “Washington” — the world of politics and policy that goes well beyond the District of Columbia’s borders — was supposed to be our turf. As I discuss in my novel coming out next year, it’s “Nerd-vana,” where all of us geeks who had interests beyond video games and MTV get to play and be in charge and feel normal. It’s an endangered species preserve for people who care enough about political issues to make a career out of them. You beautiful people got Hollywood, and most of New York, and almost every beach community along the Atlantic Coast from Virginia Beach to South Padre Island, Texas. Some would argue Nashville, too. This was supposed to be the place where how you looked didn’t matter quite as much as what you knew.

Anyway, vote in the contest, don’t vote in the contest, cheer it, boo it, do as you will . . . but let’s at least try to see people beyond their appearances, okay?

Anytime you have the chance to speak with Kristina Ribali of the FreedomWorks podcast, do so. I did today, running down the Obama Administration’s scandals, the coming reformation of the Republican party, and how Congress hides the really insidious violations of your liberty in gigantic pieces of legislation.

The final Morning Jolt of the week includes plenty of scandal roundup from this busy week, but I try to close out the week on lighter topics . . . 

A Spoiler-Filled Assessment of the Latest ‘Iron Man’ Sequel

It’s late enough for a spoiler-filled look at Iron Man 3, right?

‘Iron Man 3’ is a wildly uneven movie. When it works, it really works; when it doesn’t work, it falls flat on its iron faceplate.

The first part that I liked, and thought was a strong screenwriting decision, was the choice to have Tony Stark suffering from panic and anxiety attacks because of his near-death experience in “The Avengers.”

A couple of recent movies and television shows have irked me recently when their characters go through major, dramatic, often life-threatening or certainly outlook-altering events . . . and then return just fine afterwards. I can hear it now: “Come on, Jim, that’s just the magic of the movies,” but plot holes and slipshod characterization aren’t actually what’s supposed to be “magic” about the movies. If a character goes through an experience that should be consequential and significant, then we need some signs that it actually was consequential and significant. If the actions of the characters have no real consequence, why should the audience get involved in the show?

I can believe, for the sake of the story, that aliens exist, that superheroes exist, robots, magic, whatever you want — so long as the fictional universe I’m seeing has a certain internal consistency to the whole thing. A recent example of the writers botching this came a few months ago on “Castle,” when the protagonist’s daughter was kidnapped, taken overseas, her life threatened . . . and the next episode everything was fine, no mention made of it. In fact, I don’t think any character made any reference to it until this week’s season finale. What I watch in a fictional television series may not have to be realistic, but it does have to be believable.

I had high hopes for Ben Kingsley’s portrayal of the Mandarin, and as a result, the “twist” revealed halfway through the movie struck me as a nearly insurmountable hurdle.

First, the makers of Iron Man 3 decided that the Mandarin’s propaganda videos would make the villain really, really resemble and echo Osama bin Laden. I don’t think that’s necessarily offensive or exploitative; I think that’s hitting the notes that stir fear in our subconscious in a very effective way. (Ben Kingsley talks a bit about it here.) He hates the United States of America for reasons that seem unclear, he’s determined to teach us a lesson, and he launches random, explosive terror attacks at various targets.

But making the Mandarin a ‘fake’ figure, created by a greedy Pentagon contractor who seeks to “control supply and demand of the War on Terror” . . . well, it’s one step away from joining the 9/11 Truthers. Director Shane Black more or less made this point explicitly:

I would say that we struggled to find a way to present a mythic terrorist that had something about him that registered after the movie’s over as having been a unique take, or a clever idea, or a way to say something of use. And what was of use about the Mandarin’s portrayal in this movie, to me, is that it offers up a way that you can sort of show how people are complicit in being frightened. They buy into things in the way that the audience for this movie buys into it. And hopefully, by the end you’re like, “Yeah, we were really frightened of the Mandarin, but in the end he really wasn’t that bad after all.” In fact, the whole thing was just a product of this anonymous, behind-the-scenes guy. I think that’s a message that’s more interesting for the modern world because I think there’s a lot of behind-the-scenes, a lot of fear, that’s generated toward very available and obvious targets, which could perhaps be directed more intelligently at what’s behind them.

Except that the terrorists we see in the real world are not in fact driven by “anonymous behind the scenes guys” like shady defense contractors. The Boston bombers were not secretly being manipulated by Halliburton. The guys who killed our ambassador in Benghazi were not being paid by somebody who wanted a fat contract to provide embassy security in the future. This is conspiracy-theory thinking, and not only does it not fit in well in an Iron Man movie . . . it takes what had been this movie series’ most thoroughly menacing, frightening figure and turns him into a quick, cheap joke, and refocuses us on Guy Pearce’s Killian villain. Meh.

Killian’s grand plot to “control supply and demand in the war on terror,” by the way, makes little or no sense. Is the notion that as he does it, he’ll get rich? He’s already rich. He wants to humiliate Tony Stark, to get revenge for ditching him back in 1999? But he has many opportunities to kill him, and fails to do so.

Oh, and while the president played by William Sadler seems like a good guy who wants to protect the country (although there’s a throwaway reference to failing to prosecute anyone over an oil spill), we get the tired trope of the evil, or at least supremely morally compromised, vice president.

With all this complaining, what worked? Well, the movie’s theme, emphasized explicitly by its closing line, is that our hero is really Tony Stark, not “Iron Man.” The creators decided that Tony would spend a large chunk of this movie torn down to his core, without all of his wealth and high-tech toys, forced to improvise creative new solutions in life-and-death circumstances.

If indeed this is the last Iron Man movie, we’re left with a relentlessly enjoyable character . . . who never quite had a plot or villahat matched what he brought to the screen.

Courtesy Sean Hackbarth, here is the official portrait of former EPA administrator Lisa Jackson.

Let your comments meander, flow and rage like . . . like . . . well, I’m sure some metaphor will come to you.

Some are complaining that the $40,000 fee for the portrait is too much, but I would contend that this is the only official government portrait that has come even close to providing $40,000 in entertainment value.

Yesterday’s Morning Jolt was discussed extensively on yesterday’s Rush Limbaugh program. As if you really needed one more reason to subscribe…

Every once in a while, I continue to get complaints that the Morning Jolt e-mail newsletter isn’t arriving to some subscribers. If you have checked your spam folders and are certain it is not arriving, direct your questions, complaints, and other problems to Representedlists@newsmax.com. You’ll need to tell them what email address you are currently using for your subscription so they can check the list and see what the issue is.

(For those of you wondering, Newsmax is now handling the e-mail distribution and some marketing matters for the Jolt and other NR newsletters; they have no role in the content of the e-mails.)

The jokes write themselves: “Former prostitute running for mayor in Mississippi.“

In this much-discussed photo from Getty yesterday, President Obama mentions to a young boy that the national debt is now $16.7 trillion.

Okay, not really. Apparently the boy had some trouble at the White House Easter Egg Roll, and the president made him feel better.

But someday that child will learn about the national debt.

I’ll be among the guests for the debut of Jake Tapper’s new program “The Lead.” The show airs today on CNN at 4 p.m.; I should be in the roundtable segment near the end. Other guests include Stephen Colbert, Lebron James and Mike Bloomberg.

No, we’re not all on the same roundtable. But that would be worth watching, wouldn’t it?

If you have tried to “friend” me on Facebook in the past and I’ve ignored you, it’s nothing personal; it’s just because I only used my Facebook page for personal stuff — staying in touch with old friends, sharing pictures of my kids, stalking girls I went to high school with, you know, the usual. (Or, you know . . . maybe I secretly find you weird.)

But I’ve been convinced that there’s a large audience out there that never ventures out of Facebook, so here’s a work-related page. Like it, comment to it, share articles and blog posts, make fun of dorky pictures of me, do as you like.

In other news, here’s how today’s appearance on Daily Rundown went . . .

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Unfortunately, I didn’t get to use all of my notes on the predicted consequences of the sequester:

• Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies
• Rivers and seas boiling
• Forty years of darkness
• Earthquakes, volcanoes
• Dead rising from the grave
• Human sacrifice
• Dogs and cats living together
• Mass hysteria

We haven’t heard this kind of talk since, oh, 1984 or so.

The Thursday edition of the Morning Jolt features the Pentagon’s suddenly intensifying worry about the North Korean nuclear program, the ever-lowering bar for Chuck Hagel, and then, if you’ll indulge me, this bit of “bah humbug” about Valentine’s Day:

A Bit of Bah Humbug for Valentine’s Day

I hate to say it, but I’m joining the bandwagon of Valentine’s Day Haters, or Skeptics, or Grumps. Of course, I’m not skeptical enough to not celebrate it and not get something nice for Mrs. Campaign Spot. But year by year, I grow more convinced that it’s just a poorly conceived, poorly scheduled holiday.

What’s wrong with today? Well let’s see . . .

It’s Mean to Singles: I think David Frum offered a great thought on the holiday:

I’ve never liked the Valentine’s Day holiday. Our culture celebrates romantic love morning, noon, and night 364 days a year — and then sets aside one special day every February to rub the lovelesses’ noses in it. Not so nice. So: if you are lucky enough to have a sweetheart, of course you must kiss her (or him) today. But if you want to do a good deed, give a thought to the many lonely people around you: the divorced, the widowed, the unlucky — and maybe, if you have a spare dollar or two, you might want to send a small anonymous bouquet to one of them. Oh — and send it to the office, where everybody can see.

Romantic love is one of those things that we all like to have or would like to have, and we believe that anyone is capable of finding, but clearly some people have a very, very hard time finding that special someone. It’s not quite clear why this desired-but-hard-to-find aspect of life needs its own separate day to reinforce the sense of the haves and have-nots. I mean, you might as well have a holiday called “Money Day.”

“Hey, how did you celebrate Money Day?” “I bought a yacht. You?” “New Rolls.”

The pain of unrequited love and the intensity of that feeling around Valentine’s Day certainly gave Charles Schulz a lot to work with in his “Peanuts” cartoons, but beyond that, it stinks, doesn’t it? Did anybody out there not have at least one fairly miserable Valentine’s Day in your younger years, knowing that there was somebody out there you adored and who didn’t feel the same way about you? I’ll spare you the gruesome details of one of my worst and just give you the box score: one dozen long-stemmed roses ; unbeknownst to me and despite my best intelligence-gathering efforts, she was already going out with a guy. You’re a %*#$ sadist, Cupid.

The Awkward Celebration of Romantic Love for Children: We got the memo from my little guys’ schools and preschools — “if your child wishes to bring in Valentines, please bring one for everyone in the class.” One part of me salutes that — no need to formalize the inequities and subtle slights and hierarchy of grade school any more than the kids do already — and another part of me smells a whiff of the “everybody gets a trophy” mentality. The kids know who’s popular and who isn’t, who everyone has a crush on and who doesn’t. Getting a bunch of Valentines filled out by your friends’ moms just papers over what everybody knows.

The timing is weird. I don’t know about you, but the stretch between the Super Bowl and March Madness or Spring Training is just about the gloomiest part of the year. Anything positive associated with winter is long since spent. If you’re an area that gets snow, the novelty and fun is gone and you’re tired of shoveling. Everybody’s got colds or the flu or bronchitis. Going outside requires puffy coats that make you look like a sumo wrestler. The ice scraper for your car is cracked. The bills for the holiday spending are coming due. You’ve probably blown your New Year’s resolutions.

Perhaps that’s why February ends up with so many holidays that feel just tossed into it: Groundhog Day, President’s Day, National Organ Donor Day, Leap Day. It’s such a miserable time of year, everyone tries to distract themselves with extra holidays.

Anyway, in the middle of the least cheery time of year, we’re suddenly expected to be romantic and charming.

Never mind that the winter holidays of Christmas/Hanukkah/what have you were just six weeks ago. No, just in time to help out the nation’s retailers, here’s another big holiday where you have to get the love of your life something special! Sure, it doesn’t have to be expensive, but I suspect every guy knows, deep down, that their gal would like to be able to crow about the wonderful flowers or box of chocolates or jewelry or nice dinner out. Even if she’s not the type to brag to her girlfriends, you want her to have the option of bragging if she chooses, which means you have to give her something to brag about. (Now, if you’re in a relationship, you have an anniversary and a partner’s birthday, and lucky me, I get to have these in November and March, meaning I get FOUR major gift-giving occasions in a five-month span. It is very, very tough to come up with one good, original gift idea after another.)

Then there’s the fact that it’s on the 14th, no matter which day of the week that is, so you find yourself trying to schedule a romantic evening in the middle of the week. If there was ever a holiday to observe on a Friday or a Monday, isn’t this it?

Mind you, I can be a romantic guy. I like to have a selection of chocolates or a vase of flowers for Mrs. Campaign Spot when she gets home, but I like to do it on completely random days, or on days when I know she’s had a rough day. The surprise is one of the things that makes it so great. On Valentine’s Day, everybody knows or that something nice, albeit socially required, is coming.

What say we move Valentine’s Day to sometime in spring?

For a good portion of State of the Union night, I’ll be appearing on a podcast I’ve wanted to drop in on for a while — The Delivery with Jimmie Bise Jr.

After a heavy week, the final Morning Jolt of the week also features a look at what we’ve seen from the man who is now at the helm of both the “Star Trek” and “Star Wars” franchises, J. J. Abrams:

J. J. Abrams, Now In Charge of All ‘Star’-Related Films

Didn’t see this coming: “J. J. Abrams is set to direct ‘Episode VII.’ Sources have confirmed the ‘Star Trek Into Darkness’ filmmaker will helm the next ‘Star Wars’ movie, the highly anticipated installment in the landmark franchise scheduled to reach theaters in 2015.  ’Star Wars: Episode VII’ will be written by Michael Arndt, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of ‘Little Miss Sunshine’ and ‘Toy Story 3.’”

So, what can we expect, knowing what we know of J. J. Abrams’s career?

He perhaps first made it big with the television series “Alias”, which starred the delightful Jennifer Garner in a series of ever-more revealing outfits, infiltrating the operations of rogue spy agencies that were always working out of offices above nightclubs or in embassies that looked like mansions. I’d contend Alias had one of the most intriguing concepts that ended up not working at all on screen, the work and artifacts of “Milo Rambaldi,” a Nostradamus–meets–Leonardo da Vinci historical figure who was involved with some sort of mysterious prophecy and discoveries and inventions that were centuries ahead of their time. The whole thing was an attempt to add a bit of Raiders of the Lost Ark–style tomb-raiding to the spy genre, and it should have worked . . . except the whole thing turned into a shaggy dog story, in which our heroes needed to find one artifact in order to find the map which will lead them to the manuscript which will lead them to the tomb which will point the way to the codex which will point the way to the clock, which will lead them to . . . wait, now I’m completely lost, except that I understand the mission is doomed to failure unless Jennifer Garner goes undercover in a blue latex dress.

The great “24” would get into that mode quite a bit:

“Chloe, it’s urgent! We need to find the witness, who can lead us to the mercenary, who knows where to find the data chip, so we can use that to find the on hacker who can decrypt the code, which can descramble the Cyrus recordings, which will reveal the plot for the remaining episodes!”

“Wait, I thought we looking for the mercenary who can decrypt the code in order to find the chip!”

“Dammit, I don’t have time to explain!”

Then Abrams did “Cloverfield,” which asked, “wouldn’t it be awesome to watch a giant monster attack New York City, with all kinds of creepy 9/11-ish echoes, through the eyes of a very shaky hand-held video camera?” And we learned . . . no, it’s not awesome at all. It’s awful. Get me some Dramamine.

Then he did “Lost,” an undisputed hit that I didn’t watch. I understand Jonah and John Podhoretz thought it was an awful con of the audience, with the writers clearly making it up as they went along.

Then he directed the reinvention of “Star Trek,” which a lot of people liked, even if the time-travel plot left some folks grumbling. It was a pretty audacious decision to recast iconic characters, and it worked in almost all of the cases. The easiest way to understand Karl Urban’s performance as Bones is to conclude he was simply possessed by the spirit of DeForest Kelley while filming. The mannerisms are just kind of spooky. Ironically, in his DVD commentary, Abrams said that he approached the Star Trek reboot by asking what Star Wars did well and what the Trek movies should emulate – thus a scene of a young, frustrated Kirk, looking up at the Enterprise and dreaming of a more adventurous life beyond the horizon . . . Of course, some audience members did leave the theater temporarily blinded from all of the lens flares.

So, should one man control the fate of the Star Trek AND Star Wars franchises? Is it too much geek power in one director?

The Washington Nationals baseball team has a tradition of “racing presidents”; during a pause between innings during the game, giant-headed mascots resembling George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Teddy Roosevelt run races. A recurring gag was that every time, some bad luck befell Teddy Roosevelt; he never won until October 3, 2012, as the team won its record 98th game.

But that ballpark tradition is going to be changing soon. Coming next year: a fifth president.

The Nats set the stage on Wednesday by announcing on Twitter “a major Presidential announcement” at NatsFest this Saturday. And in case there were any doubt about what the news would be, the team made it official on Thursday with this Tweet: “The rumors are true – there will be a #5thPresident racing in 2013! But who will it be? Find out at #NatsFest!”

The Post speculates that it will be Franklin Roosevelt; he does have a monument on the Mall the way Washington, Lincoln, and Jefferson do (and Roosevelt’s is not far away, on Roosevelt Island in the Potomac).

Could it be Obama? Wouldn’t this be the ultimate pinnacle of Obama hype, to become a mascot, joining four of the country’s most iconic past leaders? Wouldn’t this add momentum to the already circulating argument that Obama should be added to Mount Rushmore?

Of course, in the vast realm of mascots, it seems a little odd to select formerly living public figures or currently living ones. For example, the race begins with a video of the mascots running through the city; I suppose we should be glad that they didn’t film Lincoln running past Ford’s Theater. If the pick turns out to be JFK, I think it’s clear they’ll never be able to depict him suddenly falling.

Why can’t we find more Democrats like this guy?

Orangetown [N.Y.] Democrat Chris Smith believes one way to shrink government costs is to eliminate your own position.

Smith is running for the office of Orangetown receiver of taxes on the plan that he’s the man to help eliminate the position. He is supporting a referendum that residents and town board members are also backing to consolidate the position with the clerk’s office.

Smith said receiver of taxes would probably remain a full-time job for two years before becoming a part-time job and then merging into the clerk’s office. The young “up-and-coming” Democrat noted that in many counties the clerk of the town already is the receiver of taxes and there is no reason Clerk Charlotte Madigan’s office cannot handle it in Orangetown.

As seen in yesterday’s Morning Jolt, my holiday greeting to readers. At this jolly time of year, it’s silly to argue whether Santa would be a Democrat or Republican. But if we must . . .

I forgot one more bit of evidence for our discussion: Santa’s buddy, Yukon Cornelius, carries a gun and works in mineral extraction.

From the final Morning Jolt of the week:

That Darn Son-to-Job Ratio

Both candidates were surprisingly good at last night’s Al Smith Dinner, an annual Catholic charity event that traditionally hosts both major party candidates for a night of laughter. (Video can be found here.) But the single biggest metaphorical crotch-kick of the night came from great-grandson Al Smith IV, who told President Obama, “We recognize that you have some challenges this year. It’s never good when your opponent has produced more sons than you have jobs.”

Politico’s Roger Simon — in some circles, “the other Roger Simon” — summarizes most of the jokes from the candidates:

Smith also pointed out that all the men on the multi-tiered dais in the Waldorf-Astoria hotel ballroom were dressed in white tie and tails, “Or, as Gov. Romney calls it, business casual.”

Romney rose and noted that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo was at the dinner and is known as a man with presidential ambitions. “Gov. Cuomo may be getting ahead of himself,” Romney pointed out. “He has put in one term as governor, he has a father who was governor and he thinks that is enough to run for president!”

All his comments were met with laughter, and I will let you insert that response after each of these:

“Usually when I get invited to gatherings like this, it’s to be the designated driver.”

“My tip for debate prep is, first, refrain from alcohol for 65 years.”

“It’s good to have someone you can depend on at the end of the day. I have my wife, Ann. President Obama has Bill Clinton.”

Romney also said the media would probably be unfair to him: “The headlines will be: ‘Obama embraced by Catholics, Romney dines with rich people.’ ”

He then ended on a serious and gracious note, by saying of Obama, “We don’t carry the burden of disliking each other. He has many fine gifts and a wonderful family that would make any man proud. There’s more to life than politics.”

Obama then approached the lectern to speak and got a standing ovation. “Everyone please take your seats,” he said, “otherwise Clint Eastwood will yell at them.”

Speaking a little longer than Romney, Obama followed with:

“I had a lot more energy in the second debate. I was well rested after the nice long nap I had during the first debate.”

“Four years ago, I gave Chris Matthews a thrill up his leg. At the first debate, I gave him a stroke.”

“Earlier, I went shopping at stores in Midtown. I understand Gov. Romney went shopping FOR stores in midtown.”

“Unemployment is at the lowest since I took office. I don’t have a joke here. I just wanted to remind people.”

Obama also added a serious note, pointing out that “family man and loving father are two titles that matter more than any political ones.”

He left out some of Romney’s best: “Speaking of Sesame Street, tonight’s dinner was brought to you by the letter ‘O’ and the number 16 trillion.”

“But the press and I have different jobs. My job is to tell the American people my plans for the country, the press’ job is to make sure no one hears about it.”

I spent this morning debuting on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” An enjoyable discussion, and I wish I’d had the chance to comment to Donny Deutsch’s out-of-the-blue speculation that Mitt Romney colors his hair. I have no idea if Romney colors his hair or not — and for what it’s worth, Michael Deaver says that despite the rumors, Ronald Reagan didn’t, he just used Brylcreem — but considering how low-information voters make their decisions based on appearance, a candidate would be foolish to not make every effort to look his or her best. (Some have asked the same questions about Obama.)

I’ll be on MSNBC’s “Daily Rundown” with Chuck Todd later this morning, around 9:40 or 9:50 or so. This morning’s jobs numbers will be a topic, as will the state of the campaign . . .

UPDATE: And here’s how it went:

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Programming note: Today I’m off to Texas for a quick trip to appear on Glenn Beck’s The Blaze.

The studio looks like some sort of amazing dream . . . complete with an Oval Office set used in past movies.