Newsweek:
It’s Summer Vacation
WEB-EXCLUSIVE COMMENTARY
By Richard Wolffe and Holly Bailey
Aug. 3 - What does the president do with his leisure time in Crawford, Texas, when he’s not clearing brush or riding his bike? One idea might be an hour or two in front of the TV to watch the new 13-part drama “Over There” on FX.
Created by Steven Bochco, whose credits include "NYPD Blue" and "Hill Street Blues," “Over There” is being sold as the first TV drama about the current war in Iraq. It also lays claim to being the first small-screen series about any war to be aired during the conflict. To TV critics, it’s a mixed bag. Some question its apolitical position; others praise its realistic portrayal of war. (The New York Times’ critic called it “slick, compelling and very violent.”)
But to the White House it means something entirely different. The art-imitates-real-life idea is breaking new ground in both TV and politics, posing a curious question for President Bush and his aides: could "Over There" affect the already-fragile poll numbers on Iraq? According to one senior Bush aide, the president has voiced a strong interest in the series but hasn’t yet seen it for himself. Bush quizzed his aides last week about how the show was produced and how faithful it was to the conflict. “Does it really depict what is going on? Do you get a sense of it?” Bush asked. In fact, just a handful of senior aides have seen the show and report it to be “riveting” and “pretty vivid.” But the senior aide says, “We don’t have an official opinion yet. I don’t think enough people have seen it.”
You can understand why Bush’s aides would be unsure of the show. While the White House likes to honor the troops in Iraq, it remains uneasy about other institutions speaking for those same troops. For much of the last year, the president has come under intense pressure from conservative Republicans, especially those representing military districts, to outline more clearly the path to success in—and withdrawal from—Iraq. That nervousness turns up time and again in the polls. According to the latest Gallup poll, 53 percent of Americans say the war was not a mistake, yet the same number believes that U.S. forces either can’t win or won’t win. Those numbers vary with the precise wording of the polls. When Gallup asked last month whether the war was worth it, that same number—53 per cent—said no. It’s obviously way too early to tell if the graphic drama of “Over There” will tilt that fine balance one way or another.
Against those nerves, the White House can at least feel reassured by FX itself, which is part of the Fox TV empire. One of the favorite shows among White House aides has been "24," the Kiefer Sutherland counterterrorism cliffhanger drama. White House aides regularly swap stories about their favorite Sutherland shoot-outs with foreign agents, terrorists and generally bad guys. “Over There” may be a different beast, but it probably appeals to the same crowd....
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8816222/site/newsweek
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