On ABC's Dragnet, McCain-Feingold Solves a Murder (Political Bias Creeps Into Regular Shows)

Media Research Center ^ | February 25, 2003 | Brent Baker

[PJ-Comix]

There's been plenty of liberal advocacy in recent weeks on NBC's The West Wing, with “President Bartlet” railing against a Republican tax cut plan, and on NBC's Mr. Sterling with “Senator Sterling” promoting a minimum wage hike, opposing missile defense and arguing for a surtax on incomes over $10 million to fund Medicare, but ABC's Dragnet on Sunday night managed to concoct a plot in which a murder is solved thanks to Senator John McCain's campaign finance reform disclosure rules.

     While I was watching the Grammy Awards on CBS to note any anti-war pontificating, MRC analyst Ken Shepherd tuned in to enjoy Dragnet on ABC and caught the credit given to McCain on the Los Angeles-based crime drama produced by Dick Wolf, the same guy who does the Law & Order shows for NBC.

     Here's how the ABC Web site described the plot of the February 23 episode: “When the beautiful and little-known actress Whitney Lynde is found brutally murdered, the detectives hope to get information from a variety of people, including a tabloid journalist (Sandra Bernhard), a wannabe porn star and a socially prominent Los Angeles family.”

     Now, let's join the show at its mid-way point after the detectives find a photo of the murder victim at a table at a political fundraiser:

     Ed O'Neill as “Detective Joe Friday,” offering some narration: “Ah politics, a world of high ideals and loads of money. The picture of Whitney and [suspect] Kankaredies was at a fundraiser for a state senator named Hendley, ten grand a table.” 
     An unidentified woman in an office, to the detectives: “These are the Hendley files.”
     Ethan Embry as “Detective Frank Smith”: “Now if we gave you a table number, you could tell us who paid for it?”
     Woman: “Thanks to a maverick Senator from Arizona we keep detailed records. Do you have a date?”
     Smith: “Yeah, August 12th two years back.”
     Woman, unfolding a room diagram with table layout: “Ah, yes, that was at the Biltmore. There's the seating chart.”

     Eventually, the names the woman provides of those attending the dinner with the victim lead the detectives to the actual culprit.

     But the credit to McCain for any such discovery is fundamentally inaccurate since any McCain-affiliated bill applies only to federal elections, not to a state race, many states and the FEC long ago required campaigns to track donors over a certain contribution level, but no one requires such information to be tracked by table number at an event, and whatever McCain-Feingold did it couldn't have done two years ago since back then it had yet to be passed, never mind have gone into effect.

     So many factual errors in such a short scene, but why let reality get in the way of fawning over the media's hero?

     ABC's Web site for Dragnet: http://abc.go.com/primetime/dragnet/index.html

     For bios and pictures of O'Neill and Embry:
http://abc.go.com/primetime/dragnet/bios/ed_oneill.html
http://abc.go.com/primetime/dragnet/bios/ethan_embry.html

     Dragnet airs at 10pm EST/PST, 9pm CST/MST Sunday nights on ABC.

[ozzymandus]

Al Bundy as Joe Friday? Need I say more? Jack Webb was really anti-drug, but he also inserted a lot of anti-gun propaganda into the original "Dragnet".

[PJ-Comix]

In 1987, Universal produced a campy, comedic Dragnet feature film -- but explicitly remained respectful of the Webb character and legacy.

Funny movie but, true, it was a tribute to Jack Webb's character of Joe Friday. Dan Ackroyd parodied Joe Friday but did NOT mock him.

[Mr. Thorne]

Ah. Thanks. Missed that part.

Really, though, can we be surprised? Witness Dick Wolf's other series (Law and Order). I watch it through a 'catholic lens' and I notice:

1.) Priests are all either hindering, or the object of, investigation.
2.) The only good catholic cop is a pro choice catholic cop.
3.) The only good catholic lawyer... see 2)
4.) The confessional should be violated for the good of the State.
5.) Pro-life people are either starry eyed, mindless dupes of powerful, manipulative people, or they're hypocrites secretly getting an abortion.
6.) If a murder occurs within two miles of an abortion mill, it was obviously the pro-lifer. Save the state the cost, and shoot 'em now.

Need I continue?