The TV Wants the President to Die: 4.22

TO THE SECRET SERVICE: I DO NOT NOW, NOR HAVE I EVER, NOR WILL I EVER, IN ANY WAY, FORM, OR MATTER, APPROVE OF OR ENDORSE ANY ACTION THAT WOULD BRING HARM TO ANY PERSON, ESPECIALLY IF THAT PERSON IS THE PRESIDENT OF MY COUNTRY. Note that what follows is simply meant only to entertain and perhaps explore some Left Coast attitudes. If you are not entertained by this, please consider yourself outside my demographic. Thank you.

It's not a happy time for political leaders on television.

It was announced that West Wing is in its last year as its ratings sink and its critical acclaim dissipates. Goodbye President Sheen.

President Palmer is dead. He had his awesome brains blown right out of his skull.

President Geena Davis has been placed 'on hiatus' as hot network ABC thinks "Commander-in-Chief" is cooling off. It's the TV equivalent of a tranquilizer dart in the back of the neck, being tossed in a black van with tinted windows, and waking up in a dark warehouse with your hands bounds and mouth gagged. Whether Steve McPherson chooses to just slap her a couple of times and tell her to shape up, or actually do the deed and ice America's first woman president in her first season, is up to him.

Are pop culture trying to tell us something? Are Ho'wooders abandoning politics? Or are viewers?

Actually, both. Viewers are abandoning "West Wing" and "Commander-in-Chief", but it was the "24" writers who killed off my favorite of the TV Presidents. See that? It's a combo. The good Presidents are written out or become shadows of their former selves, and viewers don't want to see that. Just sayin', people. . .

And finally, since the subject is presidential politics, I'd like to throw a name into the "Anyone-But-Hillary" hat for the Democratic Presidential nomination. It's one you probably haven't heard: Kathleen Sebelius. Currently, she's the popular Democratic governor of one of the reddest states in the nation: Kansas. Before being elected Governor in 2002, she'd previously won two statewide elections for Insurance Commissioner, which is one of five elected statewide offices in Kansas. Anyhoo, she's a sensible, pragmatic, centrist Democrat from the Plains, she'd probably play pretty well nationwide. And it's about time we elected a woman President anyway. Just not Hillary.

TECHNORATI TAGS: President, Politics, television, Geena Davis, Kathleen Sebelius