Isaiah Washington and America's Next Top President

It's been a long hiatus and many things have been on my mind, very few of which will come through coherently.

First, I am really over this Isaiah Washington/TR Knight/Grey's Anatomy celebrity bigotry scandal of the month. Now, I will grant you that Washington used a very ugly word and that he fumbled the PR recovery (my favorite is when he talked about how he always wanted to be gay). But, much has been made in the press (Salon, at least) of how he has gotten off easier than Michael Richards and how it is still more acceptable to be homophobic than it is to be racist and blah blah blah whatever. Now, TR Knight is talking about leaving the show and ABC is thinking about getting rid of Washington and replacing him with (God forbid) Bill Bellamy or killing off Dr. Burke outright.

It's all ridiculous as far as I'm concerned. Now, before you jump to conclusions, I'm not condoning homophobia. I spent a lot of time in high school trying to convince meatheads in the locker room that saying the word Washington used was as bad as saying the word that Richards used. And, I'm not trying to pretend that he slipped up and has issues he needs to deal with but that he's probably a great guy at heart. But, he is fantastic on the show. He gives Dr. Burke more character complexity and humaniity in a few glances and vulnerable moments than the writers could possibly give Meredith or anyone else on the show (except Sandra Oh) with all of the "insightful" voice overs in the world.

It's easy to come down on Michael Richards (Seinfeld was pretty much the only good thing that he ever did, sorry UHF) or Mel Gibson (his twin anti-semitism scandals came before and after The Passion which was a terrible movie), but Washington is one the few factors that keeps Grey's watchable. Would I want him over for cocktails? No. Do I need him on the show? Absolutely.

When it comes to celebrities of all tyoes, morality is a non-issue. In order to get to the position that they have attained, they have stepped on hundreds or thousands of people to get in the way. It is very similar to the Presidential paradox (in order to become President, one must become a terrible person while appearing to be a good one and in order to want to be President one must be a terrible person). Sure, you're out there thinking of examples of celebrities with good humanitarian reputations. Brangelina adopt all of those brown babies, Oprah gives away cars, Tom Hanks is the nicest guy in Hollywood. Bullshit, they're all monsters. Any illusion of goodness is carefully constructed by their publicists. We should really stop acting so surprised when they show us the face behind the mask. So, I say if it comes down to Washington or Knight having to leave the show, let it be Knight. He contributes less.


Second, I have been wracking my brain for weeks trying to work out the kinks in my political reality game show concept. It hit me suddenly one night a few weeks ago as I was watching Nashville Star. The last of the evenings mediocre performances (exceot that Angela Hacker woman) and Jewel (who has taken over the Leann Rimes spot! WTF Jewel doesn't even make country music and she sucks!) looked directly into the camera and told me that if my favorite went home next week then I had no one to blame but myself. So that set me thinking about how more people vote for American Idol than for President of the United States (which may or may not be true, but it's something that I heard so at least it's truthy). It suddenly hit me: Why don't we pick the President by American Idol? Of course, the Constitution would prevent it and we have a whole political structure that would resist, but why can't there be some type of reality game show with three political consultants or policy experts or a mix of the two sitting in for Randy, Paula and Simon. Anyone could audtition and then our panel would narrow it down to a limited set of contestants who would participate in political challenges every week or debate each other or make speeches and America would vote on their favorite by Internet or text message until there was only one. 1) It would allow felons, minors and noncitizens to finally have a say and 2) it just might get people engaged in politics (especially if they got Tyra to be the Seacrest, or even the Seacrest himself). The winner would get widespread name recognition and 5 million dollars in the Their Name for President fund.

Of course, the ugly realities jump in and harsh my buzz. We don't really need netwoek TV having any more control over the elections than they already do. Vote rigging would be very easy. Evil capitalist forceswould conspire to set us up with the Antichrist as America's Next Top President. But maybe their would be vote rigging across the whole board and for every Indonesian indentured servant voting thousands of times a day at Nike's behest, their would be 10 teenagers voting thousands of times a day for the Cute One. Sure, it opens itself up easily to worst case scenarios and the end result would probably be a bad one, but it would certainly be more fun than the lamefest that is Hilary vs. Obama vs. McCain vs. Giuliani vs. Romney and at least for one bright shining moment, we might actually get to vote for someone who doesn't make our skin crawl. Just maybe.


Finally, Gilmore Girls announced their third pregnancy of the season. Someone ought to change "Jumped thr shark" to "Having Babies"