Kevin Drum at Political Animal reports that conservative bloggers are obsessing over the fear that the upcoming ABC show, Commander-in-Chief, featuring Geena Davis as president, is a liberal plot to prepare the public for the reign of Hillary Clinton.
According to the Carpetbagger Report:
“James Dobson's Focus on the Family, in its daily alert to supporters, said yesterday that Geena Davis's character name, Mackenzie Allen, "sounds remarkably, poetically like" Hillary Clinton, which apparently is proof that the show is conspiring to help HRC in 2008.“
A blogger at The Colossus seems really worried:
"[T]his show is a nefarious plot to advance the notion of a Hillary Clinton presidency. The thought is that if we, the submoronic television viewers, get used to seeing a woman president on TV, we'll be more inclined to vote for one in 2008. This is what the TV industry thinks. They don't view us as being rational actors, able to vote for a President based on our own reasoning, but instead as sheep to be herded and trained."
The Corner includes a slew of posts denigrating, predicting the failure of, and just plain old worrying about the very idea of a show featuring a woman President. The site features posts with what are apparently meant to be exceedingly clever titles, such as:
THE BREAST WING [Warren Bell]
GEENA DAVIS'S EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE [John Podhoretz]
THE OVULAR OFFICE [Jonah Goldberg]
Jonah Goldberg says the show will fail. He says it so many times it begins to sound like his most fervent prayer:
"Doomed, the show is doomed."
"Doomed, doomed I tell you."
"[I]t will stink on ice."
Jonah predicts a “chick president” will be boring:
“Because a chick-president isn't remotely as controversial as Hollywood liberals think it is. A whole season of "I am woman hear me roar" plotlines will dull the pants off people, and undermine feminist arguments to boot.
It will be dull because who cares how much more difficult picking a Supreme Court nominee, raising/lowering taxes, bombing terrorist camps, whatever is for a female president? Indeed, it will grow increasingly implausible for the audience to believe that there would be any significant difference for a chick president to do anything of these things, particularly after she proved herself capable of doing the job. And the more the producers try to hammer feminist issues into every situation, the duller or more tedious it will get.
Oh, and then there's problem that Geena Davis is no longer watchable.
Doomed, doomed I tell you."
Gee, Jonah, is it really true that your worst fear is that it will be boring? What could be done to spice it up for you? Maybe the “chick president” will give everyone who does the daily work of caring for children and the elderly two votes and a hefty family allowance check to boot. Two votes for 98% of the women and one vote for 98% of the men. Think about it. Wait, hold that thought. Better yet, all women would get two votes. You might call it reparations for all those years women did without any votes.
What do you think Jonah? Would that take the edge off the dullness of a “chick president”?
Or, how about if the “chick president” declares a War on Patriarchy? With her newfound War Powers she might start by proclaiming that Feminist Studies courses will be taught in all elementary, middle, high schools and colleges with the goal of the eventual integration of feminist thought, including women’s history of course, in the school curriculum across all disciplines and grade levels.
Oh and for sure the chick president will mandate (she’ll also want to work on the language) that universal quality education across class and race will be provided by highly compensated women and men.
Certainly a chick president could not long tolerate a grossly male dominated congress in Washington or in the states. How would it look for a woman to lord it over all those men? She would have to institute measures designed to assure immediate Equal Representation (gasp).
The chick president would call it equality.
You would call it quotas.
With Equal Representation, women and LGBT persons from a multiplicity of races would set to work making scary New Rules. Equality would become the number one value of the nation. The national anthem would extol the virtues of values such as equality and cooperation.
In an effort to promote greater family and social responsibility among men, all males would be required to complete childcare courses in middle school, high school and college.
With Equal Representation in place, reproductive freedom would finally be recognized as a fundamental civil right. After all, with feminist principles taught in schools and women primed to take their equal share of power, it would become unthinkable for women to be unable to control their reproductive lives.
But in the interest of keeping things exciting, or the ratings up, expect a predominantly female Congress to turn their attention to legislation limiting the reproductive lives of all men who fail to do their best to care for the children they have produced. Great care would be taken to make the procedure as painless as possible.
The Congresswomen would call restrictions on the reproductive freedom of men fairness.
You might think of it as payback.
With women’s history and feminist thought in every classroom in the nation, it wouldn’t be long at all before the country would see a dramatic increase in the number of feminist women and pro feminist men. You might want to watch the drama with a box of Kleenex at your side, Jonah.
The sex wage gap would have to go. The U.S. Constitution would have to be completely rewritten by women and men “It might start something like this: All women and men are created equal . . . “
The workplace would be transformed into a family friendly system; all jobs would be designed for primary caregivers. Quality childcare centers would be as free and plentiful as public parks. Making money would still be important, Jonah, but it would no longer be the nation’s number one value.
There would still be free speech, so the show would feature characters such as yourself who would be free to whine and complain all they liked. They could write futile letters to their Congresswomen.
Rehabilitation centers would have to be established for patriarchal men. For men such as yourself Jonah, for those so resistant to change that they cannot function in a world in which men do not reign supreme, maximum security Refuges for Displaced Patriarchs would be provided.
It’s only a tv show, Jonah. But let's hope it's one worthy of all your fears.
Tags: feminism
Gender
right wing
progressive
Hillary Clinton
