There are essentially two things good about Political Animals, the recent six-episode miniseries on USA. Make that three things: six-episode length is excellent (I just finished State of Play, also. Six episodes is excellent).
The other two things? Well, we get to watch Sigourney Weaver, which is always a great thing. I've actually missed a lot of highlights of Weaver's career, and this reminds me that I really should seek out more of her stuff. Fans of Washington movies will know that she was wonderful in "Dave," but she's even better in this.
And the last worthwhile thing about it, as Alyssa Rosenberg pointed out, is that it's a rare entertainment about powerful, smart, capable, political women. It has a bit of an aspect of a feminist fantasy to it...at each turn, the women wind up triumphing, always (as Rosenberg noted) with the perfect zinger, the perfect line. Since we have so few of these, it's refreshing and very welcome.
(Warning: the rest of this contains spoilers, so if you care...)
That extends all the way to the end, at least in some ways. The reporter who is the second lead character after Weaver misbehaves in various ways, including sleeping with people she shouldn't sleep with -- except in this version, she comes out of it pretty much just fine, while her boss loses his job. This, shall we say, does not happen often on TV. So all of this is good: the women are allowed to be strong but also to fail at some things, and without falling back on men saving them or having them inordinately punished.
And yet...well, several things.
First: as a show, it's a mess. I guess I should back up a bit...I haven't mentioned the main conceit, which is that Weaver is playing (a version of) Hillary Clinton -- former first lady, lost a tough nomination fight, is now Secretary of State. Anyway, instead of one daughter, Hillary and Bill have a soap opera family of two sons who would fit right in with the Tates and the Campbells, except that those characters were better developed and more interesting. Six episodes is not enough time for, say, the gay suicidal drug-addict son to be anything more than awful. So as a show, you have to really want your feminist political power fantasy (and really enjoy Weaver) to make the rest tolerable.
The second thing is that the Hillary wish fulfillment (she's going to challenge the president who beat her for re-nomination) makes the feminist wish-fulfillment pretty awkward, or at least so it seemed to me. Yes, it's cute to see this version of Hillary dump her Bill, although as the show goes on you wonder what the point is, since they're basically back together. Beyond that, however, what struck me is that we sort of have to buy into that Bill is his worst image, and of course Hillary should have been president instead of Obama. Not to mention that some people might not actually like Hillary because they're, well, Republicans; the only Republican we get to know is not exactly impressive. If it was a bit less about Bill and Hillary in all but name then I don't think it would be a problem, but I think it is, here. So: when in a late episode she basically shames the not-Obama president into being a good president after all, and teaches him how to do it, I just couldn't get past how condescending it was to real-Obama, even though the show's character shares neither ethnicity nor any other obvious traits with the real thing.
And then...well, the thing sort of collapses on itself eventually. The big plot conflict for Weaver's Elaine Barrish is that she wants to run for president again even though it will probably destroy both of her (adult) sons. Wait, what? What's that doing in here? Do we really need to have an exaggerated career/mother conflict? And the resolution in the final episode is just awful: as both of her sons' lives collapse, she decides to bow out after all...although only to run for vice president, which apparently wouldn't be hard on her family at all...except that then the president up and dies and leaves the villainous VP in change, and now she's just got to run after all. Which I think, although I couldn't quite tell, was supposed to be okay because now she's going to do it because the country needed her and not because it turns out she was just being ambitious with her earlier decision to run. If that's what we're supposed to believe, it's awful: the whole point of the piece is presumably that her ambition is a good thing. Anyway, it would have worked fine if the sons had less desperate problems, but as it is we're ping-ponged rapidly from being told that it's okay for her to sacrifice her ambition for her family to being told that she needs to do it anyway.
Perhaps I'm asking too much of a show on USA. To their credit, I thought the political (unlike the personal) twists and turns were at least plausibly okay. I just wish that more of it had been watchable, and that the ending wasn't as messed up as it was.
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
Monday, September 3, 2012
Elsewhere, and Looking Back
At Plum Line, I noted that Romney has set a rhetorical trap for Obama by both insisting that the most important question was whether people are better off now than they were four years ago...and by accusing Obama of a character weakness when he blames Bush for the economy. In other words, you have to compare the economy now to then, but you're not allowed to say anything bad about then.
On the other hand, as I said over there...I think these rhetorical traps are vastly overrated. You hear this over and over, from both sides: if only our politicians would say X, then their politicians wouldn't be able to counter it, or even worse: their politicians will be forced to admit Y. The thing is: politics isn't conducted by rules under which politicians "must" answer questions. It just doesn't work that way.
Meanwhile, at PP I argued that Romney's tiny bounce -- it's not really clear yet if he got any bounce at all -- wasn't really about the quality of his convention; it was structural, having to do mainly with how efficiently the GOP lined up their voters as soon as the nomination was decided. Very large convention bounces are mostly caused not by really effective conventions; they're caused by lots of voters who by all rights should be supporting the nominee, but don't realize it yet. Basically, I was talking 1992 Democrats vs. 2012 Republicans. The thing is, I'm certainly convinced that the 1992 Democratic Convention was a far better infomercial than what we just saw in Tampa. I just don't think that any of that mattered very much. The GOP last week did well enough; there just weren't many easy-to-convert voters out there.
Now, I need to mention two other things. Before the convention, I said:
Well, that's a structural prediction that didn't really turn out very well, did it? Ryan didn't have a good week, I don't think. At least, in the press; I don't know what happened to his polling. I would say that Romney had the worst-polled convention speech in forever, and it still wasn't exactly bad. Still a net positive in self-reporting (which doesn't mean much, but still).
The other one: last week I wrote that Romney would be winning after the GOP convention. Okay, "likely" be winning. I think I'm probably going to be technically wrong on this one, but just barely. At the time, I reported the Pollster average giving Obama a one-percentage-point lead; as of right now, Monday afternoon, Pollster has it Obama 46.1, Romney 46.0. So no Romney lead today, but we could see one before the Democratic bounce (if any) kicks in. Overall, I'm not embarrassed by this one; if after a convention that polled as badly as any in the last few decades put Romney just barely short of a lead, I think it's an okay prediction. Except, you know, for not being, well, correct.
On the other hand, as I said over there...I think these rhetorical traps are vastly overrated. You hear this over and over, from both sides: if only our politicians would say X, then their politicians wouldn't be able to counter it, or even worse: their politicians will be forced to admit Y. The thing is: politics isn't conducted by rules under which politicians "must" answer questions. It just doesn't work that way.
Meanwhile, at PP I argued that Romney's tiny bounce -- it's not really clear yet if he got any bounce at all -- wasn't really about the quality of his convention; it was structural, having to do mainly with how efficiently the GOP lined up their voters as soon as the nomination was decided. Very large convention bounces are mostly caused not by really effective conventions; they're caused by lots of voters who by all rights should be supporting the nominee, but don't realize it yet. Basically, I was talking 1992 Democrats vs. 2012 Republicans. The thing is, I'm certainly convinced that the 1992 Democratic Convention was a far better infomercial than what we just saw in Tampa. I just don't think that any of that mattered very much. The GOP last week did well enough; there just weren't many easy-to-convert voters out there.
Now, I need to mention two other things. Before the convention, I said:
One thing you can pretty much count on is that Ryan will have a good week. Oh, it’s possible that something could go wrong, but for both Ryan and Romney the key thing to remember is that modern conventions are made to deliver a positive image, and they almost always succeed, at least in the short run. Even running mates who eventually turned out bad — yes, Sarah Palin — had a good convention week. I believe that Dan Quayle is really the only modern exception (and the only top-of-the-ticket exceptions are those who had internal party divisions severe enough to disrupt the normal candidate rollout).
It really isn’t a reflection at all of the people involved: Everyone looks great at their own convention.
Well, that's a structural prediction that didn't really turn out very well, did it? Ryan didn't have a good week, I don't think. At least, in the press; I don't know what happened to his polling. I would say that Romney had the worst-polled convention speech in forever, and it still wasn't exactly bad. Still a net positive in self-reporting (which doesn't mean much, but still).
The other one: last week I wrote that Romney would be winning after the GOP convention. Okay, "likely" be winning. I think I'm probably going to be technically wrong on this one, but just barely. At the time, I reported the Pollster average giving Obama a one-percentage-point lead; as of right now, Monday afternoon, Pollster has it Obama 46.1, Romney 46.0. So no Romney lead today, but we could see one before the Democratic bounce (if any) kicks in. Overall, I'm not embarrassed by this one; if after a convention that polled as badly as any in the last few decades put Romney just barely short of a lead, I think it's an okay prediction. Except, you know, for not being, well, correct.
Catch of the Day
How about one for Steve Benen, who heard Chris Wallace on Fox claim that Democrats had a sixty vote supermajority in the Senate during the entire 111th Congress and wasn't exactly thrilled. As Benen details, Democrats in fact the 60 vote supermajority was quite short-lived.
Benen gives the full rundown of changes during 2009 and 2010, but just to keep it simple: Democrats reached 60 when Al Franken was sworn in on July 7. They fell below that when Ted Kennedy died on August 25. They reached 60 again when Paul Kirk replaced Kennedy on September 24, and then fell short for good when Scott Brown was sworn in on February 4.
However, as Benen further points out, for at least most of the first (July-August) stretch, Kennedy was unable to vote; Robert Byrd was also in failing health that year, and was not always available either both in the summer and then during the longer stretch in the fall. It's probably also worth mentioning for whatever it's worth that Scott Brown was actually elected on January 19, and Republicans immediately contended that it would be entirely illegitimate for the Senate to do anything before he was seated, so the dates when Republicans considered a 60 vote supermajority to be there should probably be through only January 19.
So depending on how you count things, it's six months, or five months, or four months...it certainly isn't two years.
(I should point out Benen did get one thing wrong, although it doesn't affect his main point at all; after Byrd died and temporarily dropped the Democrats down to 58 Senators, they got back to 59 when Byrd's replacement Carte Goodwin was sworn in a couple of weeks later).
Of course, that also misses the point that up until January 2009, the majority party didn't need 60 votes for quite a bit of it's normal business (until January 1993, filibusters were relatively rare altogether). And that 60 Democrats in the Senate certainly doesn't mean that Barack Obama could do whatever he wanted. But just on the basic facts: no, it wasn't two years of 60 votes.
Nice catch!
Benen gives the full rundown of changes during 2009 and 2010, but just to keep it simple: Democrats reached 60 when Al Franken was sworn in on July 7. They fell below that when Ted Kennedy died on August 25. They reached 60 again when Paul Kirk replaced Kennedy on September 24, and then fell short for good when Scott Brown was sworn in on February 4.
However, as Benen further points out, for at least most of the first (July-August) stretch, Kennedy was unable to vote; Robert Byrd was also in failing health that year, and was not always available either both in the summer and then during the longer stretch in the fall. It's probably also worth mentioning for whatever it's worth that Scott Brown was actually elected on January 19, and Republicans immediately contended that it would be entirely illegitimate for the Senate to do anything before he was seated, so the dates when Republicans considered a 60 vote supermajority to be there should probably be through only January 19.
So depending on how you count things, it's six months, or five months, or four months...it certainly isn't two years.
(I should point out Benen did get one thing wrong, although it doesn't affect his main point at all; after Byrd died and temporarily dropped the Democrats down to 58 Senators, they got back to 59 when Byrd's replacement Carte Goodwin was sworn in a couple of weeks later).
Of course, that also misses the point that up until January 2009, the majority party didn't need 60 votes for quite a bit of it's normal business (until January 1993, filibusters were relatively rare altogether). And that 60 Democrats in the Senate certainly doesn't mean that Barack Obama could do whatever he wanted. But just on the basic facts: no, it wasn't two years of 60 votes.
Nice catch!
Sunday, September 2, 2012
Sunday Question for Liberals
What's your favorite speech (or, perhaps, moment) from past Democratic conventions?
Sunday Question for Conservatives
Which speech at the Republican National Convention, if any, deserved more attention than it received?
Saturday, September 1, 2012
What Mattered This Week?
I'll stick with the convention, and use the excuse to link over to my Salon column this weekend, where I argue that Paul Ryan may well have ruined his reputation with his speech this week. It's not going to turn the election, but it may have long term-consequences for a GOP leader, so I'll say that it matters to that extent.
As for the rest of the convention, I'll say that conventions matter for all the reasons I and others have been talking about, but I didn't notice anything particularly exceptional the rest of the time. So: mattered, but only the way you would expect; nothing new generated.
What else? What do you think mattered this week?
Friday Baseball Post
Rany Jazayerli:
The thing about the HOF, at least from the point of view of the fans, collectively, is that it's much more important to keep the bad choices out than to ensure that the good ones get in, at least in the short run. I mean, yes, it was too bad that in 2005 the Hall didn't have Ron Santo, Bert Blyleven, and Goose Gossage, but those mistakes have now been fixed. It's much more of a problem that the Hall in 2005 had, I don't know, Catfish Hunter and Rollie Fingers (who is beginning to look like a really significant error), because nothing has been done or will be done about it.
(Of course, from the point of view of the players, that's not true, since every year you're not in is a year in your life that you're not in, up to the point of posthumous selections which presumably you can't enjoy yourself).
Anyway, I think we're still probably safe from Morris even if Clemens isn't on the ballot, but it will make it somewhat more likely that they'll screw this one up. Remember, there are six HOFers new to this year's ballot: Rocket, Bonds, Piazza, Biggio, Sosa, and Schilling. It's hard to believe that Morris gets more votes than he did last year, even if only five of them are there.
Looking...the guy who really will be killed off this year is Palmeiro. Hard to believe there are a lot of people who would put Palmerio ahead of Bonds, Piazza, Clemens, or Biggio, right? Sure, I can imagine someone who voted for Dale Murphy but not Bonds. Palmeiro? Nope. I suppose I can imagine someone who puts Palmerio over McGwire, though...I wouldn't, but I can imagine both good and bad arguments for it. I suppose there might be a few writers who won't vote for Bonds for personality and not steroid reasons, and therefore might support Palmerio, but that can't be a big group, right? Anyway, he only got 13% of the vote last year, and it wouldn't surprise me if that totally collapsed this year. He's the guy who should be rooting for the Rocket to return.
You know what will bug me the most if Clemens returns? By taking himself off the HoF ballot this winter, he increases Jack Morris' chances.Damn. I hadn't thought of that -- and I was just thinking the other day about how great it was that the crazy ballot this year basically would kill off Morris. He certainly would be a terrible selection...the worst since, what, Tony Perez? Perez was in 2000...since then we've had Andrew Dawson, who for me was right on the line, and also Kirby Puckett and Jim Rice. Puckett and Rice? I think they were poor selections, but I guess they were in some ways more excusable than Morris. He, like Perez, is purely a creation of circumstance and luck in the way we tabulate things; if pitcher's wins had never been invented, no one would think Jack Morris was a HOF candidate.
The thing about the HOF, at least from the point of view of the fans, collectively, is that it's much more important to keep the bad choices out than to ensure that the good ones get in, at least in the short run. I mean, yes, it was too bad that in 2005 the Hall didn't have Ron Santo, Bert Blyleven, and Goose Gossage, but those mistakes have now been fixed. It's much more of a problem that the Hall in 2005 had, I don't know, Catfish Hunter and Rollie Fingers (who is beginning to look like a really significant error), because nothing has been done or will be done about it.
(Of course, from the point of view of the players, that's not true, since every year you're not in is a year in your life that you're not in, up to the point of posthumous selections which presumably you can't enjoy yourself).
Anyway, I think we're still probably safe from Morris even if Clemens isn't on the ballot, but it will make it somewhat more likely that they'll screw this one up. Remember, there are six HOFers new to this year's ballot: Rocket, Bonds, Piazza, Biggio, Sosa, and Schilling. It's hard to believe that Morris gets more votes than he did last year, even if only five of them are there.
Looking...the guy who really will be killed off this year is Palmeiro. Hard to believe there are a lot of people who would put Palmerio ahead of Bonds, Piazza, Clemens, or Biggio, right? Sure, I can imagine someone who voted for Dale Murphy but not Bonds. Palmeiro? Nope. I suppose I can imagine someone who puts Palmerio over McGwire, though...I wouldn't, but I can imagine both good and bad arguments for it. I suppose there might be a few writers who won't vote for Bonds for personality and not steroid reasons, and therefore might support Palmerio, but that can't be a big group, right? Anyway, he only got 13% of the vote last year, and it wouldn't surprise me if that totally collapsed this year. He's the guy who should be rooting for the Rocket to return.
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