Once there were Sunday News shows – which might jocularly be remembered as “Fake the Nation,” “Defeat the Press” and “Issues and Evasions.” Solemn men in suits tried to get a straight answer out of pompous men in suits. On “Saturday Night Live,” the charade was occasionally mocked. And, other than C-SPAN and “Washington Week in Review,” that was about it as far as the broadcast media paying attention to your government at work.
Then partisan cable channels were born and men in suits were on 24/7. But a funny thing happened as the partisan rancor proliferated, so did the mockery. “The Daily Show”, “The Nightly Show,” “Real Time,” “The Colbert Report” and on and on were born. So much so that it became possible to wonder if Washington was a real place or just a stage set designed to provide satirists with grist for their mill.
In some ways it smacked of “The Truman Show,” no relationship to Harry S., where an entire town existed solely for the purpose of televising one man’s life. Everyone in town knew they were inhabiting a fiction, but he didn’t. That captures some of the unreality of TV Washington, but members of Congress, the president, endless aides and operatives know only too well the entire enterprise is a TV show.
Many Washington denizens spend far more of their time making the rounds of “Hannity,” “Hardball,” the Sunday shows, and talk radio than legislating. Newt Gingrich made a sleazy career out of giving impassioned grandstanding speeches in the House chamber on C-Span. Unbeknownst to a large number of viewers, he was entirely alone, soliloquizing to no one. Oh, what a rogue and unpleasant knave was he.
Eventually it dawned on me that Washington characters, though constantly on view like people on “The Truman Show” or pandas at the National Zoo, most resemble stars of reality TV shows like” Jersey Shore.” I admit I never actually watched that show, but I am sufficiently sentient to have gotten the big idea.
It was populated by vain, clueless, unattractive people lacking self-awareness and hungry for fame acting like idiots for the camera. Precisely like members of the Washington establishment, except instead of calling each other “Snooki” or “The Situation” they address each other as “Madam Speaker” or “the honorable gentlemen from Kentucky.” But since each syllable is drenched with contempt and loathing, we understand the feelings beneath the formality are straight out of hair-pulling shows like Jerry Springer.
We might as well call the show “Potomac Shore,” and like the Jersey version the characters all labor under the delusion that they are stars. They aren’t in on the joke that they are the joke. Their job is to provide large rations of ignorance, folly and dysfunction to keep the pundits busy and to provide straight lines for the gag writers to top.
Some are so outrageous that they have a short run as reality stars. Michael Grimm, who once threatened to throw a nosy reporter off a parapet, had to resign, facing fraud and tax evasion charges. Aaron Schock, the selfie king, is gone one jump ahead of investigators looking into misappropriation of funds and tax finagling. Rep. Rick Renzi got three years for conspiracy, wire fraud, money laundering, extortion and insurance fraud. Jesse Jackson Jr. and his wife headed to the slammer for wire fraud and misappropriation of campaign funds.
Anthony Weiner, aka Carlos Danger, was posting images of his nether parts and sexting with teenagers while his pregnant wife was giving birth. What a guy. Then there are the sex-with-staffers crowd –Sen John Ensign and Rep. Vance McAllister — and the substance-abuse caucus — Reps. Trey Radel and Patrick Kennedy. The hypocrisy in many of these cases in almost as bad as the crimes and misdemeanors. They run as paragons of family values or Old Testament moral strictness, but in private are happy residents of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Rep. Scott DesJarlais is a loud opponent of abortion except when trying to talk his wife and mistress into getting them. Rep. Mark Souter made a video extolling sexual abstinence while having an extra-marital affair. Sen Larry Craig voted against same sex marriage shortly before being arrested for soliciting gay sex in an airport men’s room. Rep. David Vitter is against gay marriage, abortion, and Planned Parenthood, but was in favor of using hookers supplied by the D.C. Madam. Rep. Charles Rangel of the powerful House tax-writing committee engaged in numerous instances of falsely reporting and misreporting income.
And then there are the simply intolerant members who proclaim their love for the Constitution and then argue for policies at odds with the document. Rep. Jody Hice believes Muslims aren’t covered by the First Amendment. Sen. Jon Kyl wants to repeal the 14th Amendment which grants equal protection to all citizens under federal law no matter what states may say. Presumably he also wants to repeal the Civil War.
Finally, there are the flat out nut jobs like birther Steve King and Louis Gohmert who believes Muslim women are coming to American to give birth to “terror babies” who will then be taken back to alien lands, raised as terrorists for 18 years, then — armed United States citizenship — will return to wreak havoc.
Like most reality shows, the grotesquerie palls after a while and one begins to hope a protagonist, a hero might show up. Or just a decent human being. They may be there, working hard in the quiet of their offices. But the ones who jostle for a place in the bright TV lights of “Potomac Shore” are a motley crew of sideshow freaks that any carnival would die for. And we elect them.