Friday, June 17, 2005

 

The Revelation Will Not Be Televised

Once again, Billmon over at Whiskey Bar, in the midst of tossing off amazing aperçus like this one, points out that the Iraq War -- judged strictly as a television show -- is dangerously close to jumping the shark:

From the very beginning, of course, the Bush administration has shown a pronounced tendency to treat the war on terrorism and the war in Iraq as if they were gigantic back-to-back episodes of America's Most Wanted. And the media (which, after all, invented the genre) has been only too happy to oblige.

From the Pentagon's point of view, though, the biggest problem with the plot is that it isn't going anywhere. That might not be so bad (in 14 seasons of Bonanaza, the only place the Cartwrights ever went was back to the ranch) but this is a war/spy show, and those are always tricky -- to hold the audience, you need progress towards victory, even though you can't actually get there until the final episode, which in this case might be a long way off.

The Keystone Crips running this country are very close to discovering that you can coast by on the three "b"s -- bluster, bullying, and bullshit -- for only so long.

posted by Michael 10:50 PM