Jonah, since you brought up the movie Dave, can I just say that it symbolizes brilliantly the decline of Hollywood storytelling? In essence, it’s Anthony Hope’s old Prisoner Of Zenda plot – non-regal doppelganger gets to play the king and provides all the kingly virtues His Actual Majesty has none of. (I mentioned the novel en passant in NR’s WFB tribute issue.) In Zenda, the lookalike king restores to the royal house honor and courage and stuff like that, by seeing off the would-be usurper to the throne. In the Dave version, he brings, as you note, a jobs bill. What a waste of Kevin Kline. Thus, contemporary Hollywood’s unerring ability to take a surefire plot and kill it stone dead.