TONIGHT: Live-Blogging Commander-in-Chief
Somebody’s got to do it: Commander-in-Chief got huge ratings last week. Tonight. 9:00. Live-blogging here. Come on by and join in!
8:54 I’m asking myself: why bother with this silly show? The answer is that first, the show won its time slot last week. So there are a lot of people interested in, I’m guessing, the premise. A woman president. And that’s my second answer — this is an important topic. If they are going to do a show about female leadership, they ought to get it right.
9:03 Given the events of this week — it’s very interesting to see the Speaker of the House handing his suggestions for VP to the Chief of Staff. . .
9:04 Sniper on the roof. That’s real.
9:05 “First Gentleman” — I hope they don’t play his role for laughs the whole time. Such great serious possibilities.
9:13 So the Democrats are the majority in the Senate, huh? Funny.
9:14 He won a war without losing a single American life? (Her preferred Vice Presidential pick.) Good one.
9:43 Be sure to follow the comments with great observations from the Drill Sergeant!
9:48 It strikes me that a theme running through this show is a lack of professionalism. The Press Secretary is struggling. And the Chief of Staff just yelled at the President? Never. Ever. Not going to happen.
The collagen lips are still terribly distracting, but the Mackenzie Allen character is better than last week.
9:54 Hah. So now we get to have Wesley Clark as Vice President. It is interesting to see Hollywood dream.
9:58 I don’t think that actor is believable as a general. Looks a little lightweight.
The Speaker of the House says the General “will never be confirmed.” So they’re setting up a confirmation battle to parallel real life. Clever.
great.. it’s so bad it’s good. Like Monty Python.
I was going to send you a comment and ask. 🙂
2107: Pres goes into a meeting with 8 generals sitting around a table? My impression was that the SecDef and the Chairman will meet, but the Chiefs and Indians 🙂 don’t normally go to the House.
coming out of the meeting, the CoS says that the Pres is meting with the Joint Chiefs at 3PM? what was she just in?
seems just a whole series of cosmetics to beef her up.
2114: The possible new VP General Keeton (SP?):
– won a war without losing a single American life.
– is an economic genius
nothing like seting a high standard.
a newer better Wes Clark?
Interestingly, for a Republican Administration there are lots of black faces in the Oval office.
2127: a General, seemingly on active duty (implied by references to his aide) refuses to talk to the President? In what world?
I don’t think there is a person in the world that won’t take a call from the President
2128: The first daughter doesn’t seem to understand the fact that she has been a protected person. walking outside the House to call a cab?
She couldn’t do that last week and can’t now.
I assume that she has been assigned the same Principal Agent since the campaign. This shouldn’t be a surprise.
Movers taking stuff from the First families possessions between packing at Blair and unpacking at the House? No.
They would have been packed by the Blair house staff assigned and unpacked by the same sort of assigned ushers and House staff.
All those folks are 20+ year staff with top clearances. They don’t talk and they don’t steal.
I predict we’re gonna have a romance (CoS and CoS)
President’s and the Speaker’s
Palestinians in the WH, How inclusive.
Generals that empathize with Palestinians, how inclusive.
Finally, a set of lines that I like. Pres says, you’ll take the job because I asked, You’ll salute and take the job.
the rest of the scene was crap.
a Make-up comment from the first show. I didn’t make it at the time because I failed to understand who the players were. First scene:
1. Pres has a stroke. VP is in Paris. WH CoS gets on a plane and flies to Paris to tell the VP that the Pres is hurt and she needs to come home and resign? NOT
2. How about: Pres has a stroke. Secret Service rushes him to the Hospital. WH CoS rushes to the House and works 24/7 doing press and media control. (Al Haig?). Secret Service flashes news to Paris. VP Principal Agent gets the VP out of the concert and they rush her back to the plane and fly home. Brief her enroute.
The point is that to the extent that the CoS has either power or usefulness, that effectiveness is confined to operations inside the WH. In a crisis, the WH CoS would be working from the WH.
Changing shows here, I DO like the E-Ring. Like JAG, it has some structural issues, cliché characters and trite script work, but it doesn’t have as much pretense as CiC.
One problem of course is that for the most part, Special Ops Missions are run out of one of the regional Combatant Commands (COCOMs) like CENTCOM rather than the pentagon, which primarily is staffed to support policy, admin and budgetary issues. The raising of Armies, not the fighting of armies. The other place that would likely run a Spec Ops mission would be the global Special Ops Command (SOCOM). To the extent that the writers are just simplifying the plot and attributing SOCOM functions to the Pentagon, I forgive them.