Posted on 09/28/2005 3:29:04 AM PDT by goldstategop
THE HILLARY CLINTON 08 CAMPAIGN AIRED ITS FIRST, HOUR-LONG COMMERCIAL last night. Unfortunately, it came masked as a primetime network TV series.
ABCs Commander-in-Chief stars Geena Davis as the first female president. Recognizing obvious parallels with Hillary Clintons presidential ambitions, its creator, stars, and assistants not a single Republican amongst them carefully distanced themselves from the notion their new program would promote either Hillary proper or left-wing politics in general. We're going to deal with East Wing stuff, residential stuff, series creator Rod Lurie told The Hollywood Reporter. We don't want to be caught on the Left side of the world at all. Davis quipped shes only involved in the politics of making sure that ABC and Touchstone are very happy with this show. The program, its promoters reassured, would cover such material as how to get the First Kids to school, how to take the First Kids trick-or-treating, how state dinners are run from A to Z.
As usual, the Hollywood Left lied.
The Play is the Thing
Last night, Commander in Chief portrayed conservatives as ruthless, power-hungry, militaristic, Bible-thumping, sexist bigots. The New Republic observed, the show's partisan bias is comically unsubtle.
As the show begins, Republican Teddy Roosevelt Bridges selects university president and former Congresswoman Mackenzie Allen (Davis) as vice president for the novelty it brings his ticket. Allen is a registered independent who does not share the presidents agenda. Two years after their election, Vice President Allen is in France, listening to a childrens choir sing God Bless America en francais, when she gets the news President Bridges has suffered a brain aneurysm. She rushes to his deathbed, where he asks her to resign, so conservative Speaker of the House Nathan Templeton (portrayed by Donald Sutherland) can assume the presidency. When Allen asks her speechwriters to draft a resignation speech, the male writer explodes this is the wrong move. Templeton, he shouts, is a militarist who will bring Creationism into the schools.
When Allen begins to have second thoughts, Templeton derides her with a crudely sexist rant, in which he notes his antipathy for France. (He mocks her naivety for asking guys who can't get elected without the Muslim vote to interfere...in the Shari'a court during an African junket.) In a line apparently culled from Lex Luthor, Templeton tells the prospective president her good intentions are no reason to accede to the Oval Office: The reason you want to be president is because you want the power, you want the power to control the universe.
Pressure mounts. Even her teenage daughter, Rebecca also an evil Republican wants her to step down. I have a daughter who'd rather see Pat Buchanan in the Oval Office than her old lady, Allen sighs. Nonetheless, she is sworn in. When she cannot find a Bible for the inauguration, Speaker Templeton gladly supplies his. (Hes a conservative Christian get it?)
Upon inauguration, the series rehabilitation of Hillary Clinton begins in earnest. The writers make a half-dozen ham-handed references to the former first lady in the pilot episode alone. President Allen, it seems, is one-half of a power team. Her husband, Rod, served as her chief-of-staff in the vice presidents office, but as a magnanimous gesture, Allen keeps President Bridges chief-of-staff on during the transition, leaving Rod a lonely First Husband. He complains their partnership had worked in the past, because we were at each others side.
Now he is confined to the first ladys quarters the pinkest room in television history where he contemplates a painting of Nancy Reagan decked out in one of her trademark red dresses with pearls. He is greeted by the head of White House protocol, a Stepford Wife who speaks to him in endless tones of condescending mock sweetness. She asks where he would like his office. She notes, Mrs. Clinton had her office in the West Wing. That didnt go over very well. How many staffers will he need? 20? Again, Mrs. Clinton had 20. That didnt go over well. When he expresses a desire to see his wifes first televised speech, the protocol expert demands, Will you be involving yourself in things like that? Soon, he bristles at selecting the presidents favorite salad dressing, to which she replies, There was Mrs. Clinton. She shunned that.
The message couldnt be clearer: Hillary didnt stay home and bake cookies. She was too brilliant to sink into the life of the lobotomized social set (unlike Nancy Reagan). How dare we object to her rightful position at her husbands side, using her ample talents to guide this nation during his presidency? What were we thinking to chain this political genius to an unfulfilling life of china patterns and interior decorating? The opening salvo of Commander in Chief is a guilt trip for all those Americans who thought an unelected (and then-unelectable) feminist extremist should refrain from imposing her will upon the nation.
Although she has doubts (I was never on the inside. I wasn't Gore. I wasn't Cheney, she tells Rod), President Clinton err, Allen quickly comes into her own. Defying stereotypes of weak female leaders, she orders a military incursion but a venture of a decidedly Clintonesque kind. She sends an expeditionary force into Kirikiri Prison in Lagos, Nigeria, to save a woman condemned to death for committing adultery (another Clintonesque connection), just as that woman is being led to her execution. (Perhaps a reference to how Hillary bailed out Bill during impeachment?) Again, humanitarian campaigns in Third World countries are acceptable; actions to defend the American homeland are for militarists, like Templeton.
Then she steps before Congress to give what is supposed to be her triumphant first national address (in reality, a hackneyed and self-aggrandizing piece of melodrama). When her Teleprompter mysteriously dies, Speaker Templeton nods darkly in knowing satisfaction. President Allen is undeterred. Speaking extemporaneously, she lets George W. Bush err, Nathan Templeton have it: The responsibility of a great state is to serve the world, not to dominate it. Everyone in the audience even her staunchest critics instantly showers her in glowing adoration.
As the producers hope you will for Hillary. With good reason, Rod Lurie, a Clinton supporter, told an audience of critics, If Hillary Clinton should get the nomination, were all taking credit. Why shouldn't he? The first episode alone had all the elements of Loony Leftism: Sexist bigots embedded in the highest levels of power, a vast right-wing conspiracy against women, the casting of an academic as an enlightened hero, the dehumanization of women who devote themselves to family life, and the belief that French Muslims are our natural allies if only we will stop dominating them.
Luke Montgomery of the website Bill-for-First-Lady.com, agrees the series will be a windfall for Mrs. Clinton. Tuesday's series premiere is Super Tuesday for Hillary supporters, he said. Geena Davis has our vote, but there's no doubt the real-life winning ticket is Hillary as president with Bill as First Lady. Prominent Democrats Susan Estrich, Morgan Fairchild, and Barbara Lee a Boston-based fundraiser for Hillary and founder of the White House Project hosted or attended viewing parties last night.
A History of Hollywood Activism
This is not the first time show creator Rod Lurie has strayed into Clintonite territory. He also wrote The Contender, his 2000 film about the first female vice president, who is a victim of conservative sexual witch-hunters. (Ironically, his first film, 1998s Deterrence, salutes a president who launches a nuclear strike against Baghdad in the year 2008, after Iraqi President Udei Hussein threatens to launch nuclear weapons he acquired from France. At the time, attacking Iraq was still the Clinton party line.)
Geena Davis attended the last President Clintons inaugurals and would not be reluctant for another invitation.
However, it is Donald Sutherland who has the longest track record of support for radical causes. With then-lover Jane Fonda, Sutherland set up the Winter Soldier Investigations in the winter of 1971. John Kerry also participated in these mock investigations, in which 150 pseudo-soldiers testified to committing war atrocities against Vietnamese civilians.
The following year, Sutherland and Fonda toured military towns of the West Coast, in an apparent attempt to encourage soldiers to desert or commit mutiny. They filmed their anti-American exploits in the movie FTA (which stood for F-ck The Army). The film captures Sutherland threatening American politicians and military leaders:
Remember this well, you people who plan for war. Remember this, you patriots, you fierce ones, you spawners of hate, you inventors of slogans...We are men of peace, we are men who work, and we want no quarrel...But if you try to range us one against the other, we will know what to do. If you tell us to make the world safe for democracy, we will take you seriously....
We will use the guns you forced upon us...to defend our very lives, and the menace to our lives does not lie on the other side of a no-mans land set apart without our consent. It lies within our own boundaries...Put the guns into our hands, and we will use them...Give us the slogans, and well turn them into realities...And we will live.
Yes, even then, the Left supported their troops when they shot their officers.
The years have not mellowed the septuagenarian leftist. After telling a reporter with the London Sunday Times that Tony Blair is evil and the French are a model of family values (!), Sutherland dubbed Iraq way worse than Vietnam:
Vietnam was a lie but at least there was a political agenda. It was the Domino Theory. Iraq is about nothing but George Bushs ego laced with imperialist ambitions.
Now he will take his animus for imperialist conservatives into his TV work.
Same Partisan Time, Same Partisan Channel .
Although the writers have promised this independent president will swerve right-ward on occasion, all the programs antagonists from the sexist President Bridges to the evil Nathan Templeton have been cast as conservative Republicans. In a characteristic Hollywood move, a Left-leaning president is portrayed as an independent an attempt by Hollywood to position its far-Left agenda as centrist, assaulted by extremists on the Right. There seems to be little reason for optimism, judging from forthcoming plots.
Next Episode: Madame president taps for Vice President Sixties radical Peter Coyote (a Mumia Abu-Jamal fan who questioned whether we should retaliate for 9/11 and supported the presidential campaign of Dennis Kucinich) but evil Republicans spike the choice.
Coming Soon: Her daughter the conservative one is involved in a videotaped sex scandal. Explains actress Caitlin Wachs, Its like Paris Hilton, but maybe not as staged. No doubt the message will be: This woman shouldnt be held accountable for the sexual foibles of her family members. Shes a victim, too.
Or rather, you are, if you watch
Last night, Commander in Chief portrayed conservatives as ruthless, power-hungry, militaristic, Bible-thumping, sexist bigots. The New Republic observed, the show's partisan bias is comically unsubtle.
Yeah right. And you're stuck on stupid if you don't think this isn't a promotion of a partisan and left-wing agenda. I give it two weeks.
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
I was watching the Discovery Channel.
I wanna see the ratings..It was up against HOUSE...
So who advertised on this thing, anyone know?
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
ABC/Disney is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Democrat Party. This is their flagrant attempt at brain-washing the viewing public to accept Hitlery's run in '08. But who would watch this laughable drivel but those lefties who would vote for her anyway? The companies sponsoring this slop are the biggest losers of all because this will turn off many consumers.
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
What's interesting is that ABC spent money on this and is giving it airtime. And if the ratings aren't there, it'll be even more interesting to see how long ABC sticks with it. And who continues to advertise on it.
Sorry, it's on opposite "My Name is Earl" so I doubt I'll ever have a chance to watch it.
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
I watched "My Name Is Earl". Funny stuff.
Just think, for Hillary to win our candidate would have to be even worse. Now that's something to fear.
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
I'm so sorry.
I fell asleep while my wife watched this trash.
But even through my closed eyelids, the messages beamed in.
So after the one episode, I'm ready! I know that a female president will be strong! I know that a female president will be respected throughout the land and the entire world, even by the terrorist ragheads.
I'm converted! Hillary!; Hillary!; Hillary!!!! HoooHaaaa!
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
"Just think, for Hillary to win our candidate would have to be even worse. Now that's something to fear".
But entirely possible unfortunately. Still, I believe TV with the West Wing and this show is as close as Dummies will get to the White House.
I'm glad they made it a cartoonish rant. I hope it runs for 16 weeks and gives the whole country a good dose of what Hollywood thinks of the Red State people and I can't wait til Ms. President is shown marching in a protest march!
I can't wait for the episode where the evil Republicans wrongly accuse the first Husband of adultry. The evil Republicans will have paid some women to lie about sexual affairs and sexual abuse, but the first husband will bravely face these changes and in the end be proven completely innocent. I am betting episode 3.
I watched it and came away with a totally different perspective.
One, she was in France to ask for french help dealing with Nigeria, got rebuffed and decided to move the Navy into position on her way back to DC as soon as she knew she might become president.
The shots at hillary were rapid-fire from a senior permanant white house(keeping) staff member.
Two the only way this show can be made believable is if she acts like a republican and the only way it will win a ratings battle is if she acts like Bush.
The end of the Nigeria crisis, with the Marines going into retrive a single female and child from certain death after Nigeria craves under military threat isn't the way liberals do things. They hold hands and sing folk songs best left for campfires while republicans act.
And finally as long as Donald Sutherland drawls on que, you might as well throw a sheet over his head and call him Senator Bird(Byrd) any american with half a ounce of grey matter between their ears will know who he is really acting like.
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