Commander in Chief: The Left Wing Redux

IMDb ^ | October 2, 2005 | J. Neil Schulman

[J. Neil Schulman]

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Full disclosure requires me to reveal my prejudice: I am no fan of Rod Lurie.

Back when Lurie was a KABC Radio film critic I crossed swords with him when he was on air attacking the Academy for honoring director and HUAC friendly witness Elia Kazan, and once again spinning the Hollywood left's unending revisionist history about the House UnAmerican Activities Committee, which started out investigating Nazis in Hollywood with full Communist Party support, but apparently went awry when, post WW2, HUAC attempted to root out communists in the creative guilds who were working to blacklist anti-communist writers and directors.

Listen, I'd love to see a woman president -- for example, Dr. Condoleezza Rice.

I've also had a crush on Geena Davis ever since I first saw her on an episode of Family Ties. And I love the movie, Speechless, in which she plays a political speech-writer engaged in a cross-party love affair, a la Mary Matalin and James Carville.

For years I've called The West Wing methadone maintenance for Democrats, so my question is why -- considering that at least half the country votes Republican -- could not a rival network's show have given us a female -- and maybe even black -- Republican conservative president? No, that can't happen. This show isn't intended to be entertainment but a warm-up act for Hillary's bid for the presidency in 2008.

Well, I guess the Republican majority is a demographic market slice the TV networks believe they can afford to do without. Or maybe that's why the old networks are losing their audience.

I'm a writer, so let me just concentrate on the writing of the pilot episode. Spoilers start here.

Why is is that the Hollywood left finds it outrageous that a conservative male president took us to war after we were attacked on 9/11 to eliminate the Taliban in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein in Iraq -- both of whose treatment of thousands of women was brutal and barbaric -- yet the idea of a liberal female president invading a Muslim country to rescue a lone Muslim woman sentenced to death for adultery by a Sharia court is just peachy? And why is it that it's perfectly okay for a new female president -- who delivers a soliloquy on how inexperienced she is -- to humiliate her main political adviser, who happens to be her husband, by denying him any job of substance in her administration because, after all, we wouldn't want anyone to think that her chief of staff is running the country? I don't see President Bush worrying about the movie Bush's Brain, which asserts that his political adviser Karl Rove is the power behind the throne.

If Commander in Chief starts to tank in the ratings, I hope -- as an alternative to dumping it -- ABC seeks out Dick Morris to retool it.

Now that would be an interesting show.