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September 29, 2005

Fantasy Presidents Index

Here's a new measure of a presidency: How many TV shows about fictitious presidents do we need to get the taste of the current one out of our mouths for at least a few minutes?

George W. Bush is, of course, the current record holder with an FPI of 2.5 (West Wing, Commander in Chief, 24).

For what it's worth (and let me do the math for you: Nothing), I was disappointed in Commander in Chief. West Wing aspires to some level of complexity in its narrative, while CiC's first episode promised a conflict between a good gal and a bad guy. Plus, although I usually like Gina Geena Davis' work, I thought she was wooden in CiC. She even failed to inspire me in her set-piece speech to Congress, which she delivered with all the enthusiasm of a kid giving a book report; I was surprised it didn't end with "This book can be found in the library."

I mean, I'd still vote for her character or for Geena Davis the actress over Bush. But W makes me yearn for the willfully over-simplifistic, fiscally irresponsible, cold-hearted, enviro-trashing, cynically manipulative, and remarkably corrupt Reagan administration. Ah, the good old days when it was morning in America! [Tags: GeorgeBush WestWing CommanderInChief tv politics]

Posted by D. Weinberger at September 29, 2005 08:19 AM

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Tracked on September 29, 2005 02:30 PM

Comments

Ms. Davis's name is Geena.

Posted by: Kyle Hasselbacher | September 29, 2005 11:53 AM

If Reagan was morning in America, Bush II could be the "morning after."

And stretching the metaphor, what would that make Clinton?

Posted by: Frank Patrick | September 29, 2005 01:05 PM

david, you're an unabashed partisan zealot, goin after republicans and such.

Posted by: Butch Patrick | September 29, 2005 03:32 PM

OT, but I was just checking out the Google personalize your home page thing, and typed in "politics" to create my own category. It gave me an option to add Joho the Blog headlines to my news headlines. Well, I guess you knew that. I'm often late on these things.

Posted by: Linda | September 29, 2005 04:40 PM

Linda, first I've heard of it. Yikes, that's crazy! This blog, which only sometimes talks about politics, is orders of magnitude less visited trafficked than the big names in political blogging.

I'm sure google will fix this glitch quickly.

I wonder if it's because I tag stuff as "politics." Is google starting to pay attention to tags?

Posted by: David Weinberger | September 29, 2005 06:07 PM

And, at first I wasn't going to post 'cause I assumed you knew! But, I wanted to join the discussion and that's all I had to say. :)

I bet it is the tags. If you put in "political" your blog doesn't come up; just politics.

It was fun to come back and see your new post above. :)

Posted by: Linda | September 29, 2005 06:29 PM

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