Commander-in-Chief

I watched the new Geena Davis show Commander-in-Chief last night. As soon as I saw ads for it, I thought, "They are softening up America for Hillary's run in 2008." With that mind, it was kind of funny to hear all the rips into Hillary during the show, in particular in the sequence where Kyle Secor's character is introduced to his First Lady duties. I guess that's the shows attempt to say, "See, we're not working for Hillary."

The show is produced by Rod Lurie, director of the film The Contender. Lurie, an unabashed Hollywood liberal, promises the show will not be a soapbox for liberalism and will be balanced. So I had to chuckle at a few points. When Davis' President is sworn in, she and her family are unable to find a Bible, and is forced to use the one the conservative House Speaker (Donald Sutherland) apparently just happens to carry with him wherever he goes. At another point, a member of then Vice President Allen's staff describes what a new conservative president would mean: the return of book burning, creationism in the classroom and invading every Third World country.

That last bit is made even more humorous by subsequent events. We can assume that invading Third World countries is considered a bad thing in Allen's circle. So, what's her first act as president? She sends the Marines into an African country (Third World) to forcibly extricate a woman about to be executed. Why she does this is never explained. But the point is, sending fully armed Marines in gunships into a foreign country would constitute an invasion of that country. So her first act as president is to violate her own beliefs.

This incident reminded me of an episode of Yes Prime Minister. To get some positive media coverage, the PM sends in the army to rescue a dog who has gotten stranded somewhere, on a firing range I think. (It's been a long time since I've seen the shows.) Then Hacker gets hit with the bill for the operation, which is pretty big.

In Commander-in-Chief, Allen redeploys the Navy and sends in a small invasion force of Marines aboard helicopter gunships to take out some anonymous woman and her baby. At no point in the show does anyone question the cost of this operation, which I am sure is considerable. I guess that's what a proper presidency should look like from Lurie's point of view: do whatever is right, who cares about how much it costs. So why do they want to get rid of Bush?