{"id":1863,"date":"2005-09-30T02:17:13","date_gmt":"2005-09-30T09:17:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2005\/09\/30\/commander-in-chief-2\/"},"modified":"2005-09-30T02:17:13","modified_gmt":"2005-09-30T09:17:13","slug":"commander-in-chief-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=1863","title":{"rendered":"Commander in Chief"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Warning: Spoilers ahead.)<\/em><\/p>\n

Just watched the “Commander in Chief” premiere. Politics aside, it just isn’t a very good show, is it? The damn thing is so earnest<\/em> – there were a couple of jokes (including a funny running gag about Hilary-resentment among the White House staff), but they were very far between. It’s as if someone set out to prove that West Wing<\/em> would be unbearable without the sense of humor.<\/p>\n

The Nigerian subplot was an insult to viewers’ intelligence. I understand it was intended to be wish-fulfillment, but come on: once having been warned, why wouldn’t the Nigerian government just move the prisoner to a secret location right away, or have a guard shoot her in the head before the US Marines could arrive? Why would they set a precedent that the US gets to dictate Nigerian internal policy, without even offering any benefits or face-saving to Nigeria’s government? It makes no sense.<\/p>\n

Plausibility aside, I’m also bothered by the politics <\/em>of the Nigerian subplot. The show endorses the idea that the US can get whatever it wants in foreign policy if the President is just willing to be a belligerent enough bully and to wave around the US military like a magic wand. The world doesn’t work that way – but the belief that it does <\/em>helped Bush and co. get away with claiming that Iraq would be a cakewalk, in and out in less than a year, welcomed with hugs and flowers, etc.. I was hoping that the atrocious results in Iraq would put that kind of thinking in the grave for at least a few years, but apparently not.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Warning: Spoilers ahead.) Just watched the “Commander in Chief” premiere. Politics aside, it just isn’t a very good show, is it? The damn thing is so earnest – there were a couple of jokes (including a funny running gag about … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-popular-and-unpopular-culture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1863\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}