Spin Dry

Anyone remember the premise of the pilot for TV's short-lived The Lone Gunmen? If not, I'll refresh your memory. It involved a commercial airliner, fitted with hardware that would take over control -- and fly the plane into the World Trade Center. From there, the blame would go to the Arabs, war would erupt and the arms dealers behind it would make a fortune. In TV-land, the hero averted the attempt at the last minute. In real life... well, we all know what happened.

So, further to the tinfoil woo-woo over the Nuclear Smuggling "Exercise" taking place in Charleston, South Carolina this week, please note the plot of the 1983 TV movie Special Bulletin:

A TV reporter and cameraman are taken hostage on a tugboat while covering a workers' strike. The demands of the hostage-takers are to collect all the nuclear detonators in the Charleston, SC area so they may be detonated at sea. They threaten to detonate a nuclear device if their own of their demand isnt met.

To anyone who didn't see this movie -- yes, they did, turning Charleston into toast. Even creepier, the original program was done War of the Worlds style (Orson Wells version, not Spielberg's summer crap); that is, it pretended to be an actual newscast of live events.

Now, there's nothing original in Washington. Wouldn't surprise me if they had borrowed from an old, half-forgotten TV movie for their inspiration.

I mean -- why Charleston? Why not a blue town like Bawstun?

Oh, that's right. It's the year of the bad remake, isn't it?

And this could be the worst of all.

Armageddon in T-minus 56 hours...