Carm and The Rebel

Two shows to watch closely: The Simpsons and ... The Sopranos.

Both shows throw in nuggets and details, and very funny ones, that you may miss if you don't watch closely.

For example, on Sunday night's episode of The Sopranos, Tony's wife Carm was reading in bed a book, Rebel in Chief: How George W. Bush Is Redefining the Conservative Movement and Transforming America, by Fred Barnes.

This was a laugh-out-loud moment.

Written when Bush was still popular, Rebel in Chief should go down as a complete embarassment to Barnes for its hagiographic, uncritical views of Bush.

It also makes me laugh, as Carm has pointed out before, that the Soprano family is ... Republican.

Here is an excerpt from the book in which Barnes compares George Bush to ... Franklin D. Roosevelt and Teddy Roosevelt:

Bush is actually a mixture of FDR and TR, with FDR's cool optimism and TR's pugnacity and determination. This combination strikes some, especially critics, as arrogance. A more charitable view is that Bush has the temperament of a self-assured Texas male. To those who insist he swaggers, Bush responds, "In Texas, we call it walking." Bush has a penchant for embracing big projects. He dismisses many issues as "small-ball" or "mini-ball" -- not worth a president's time and attention. One of his favorite sayings is "We didn't come here to do school uniforms." It's a dig at Clinton, the master of the mini-proposal.

I'm happy that the Sopranos writers don't ignore "mini-balls," or should I say "the details," when they write.

Details are important, don't you know, in writing and in running a country.

If Bill Clinton had the exact same record as George Bush, Fred Barnes would have absolutely blasted Clinton. So why does he love Bush so uncritically, just because he has the label "Republican"?

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