The Awfulness That Is Commander in Chief

Well, I wasn't terribly impressed with the show from the beginning, and yesterday's "solution" to a narcotrafficking dictator really just blew it.

To start off, though, the show's premise is so ridiculous that it strains even my generous credibility. Not the woman-as-president thing. The Republican-nominates-an-independent thing. I can only imagine the writers assumed that this somehow made it more credible, but I can't see how. It's not like there's a shortage of woman Republicans to pick from. Well, there is, but there's still enough to make a shortlist of VP candidates. In an effort to make a woman vice-president more credible, the writers have succeeded in making it totally implausible. Weird.

Last night's episode really blew away my expectations for badness, however. Faced with a Noriega-style dictator up to his eyeballs in the drug trade, the President's solution is spray the country with defoliants to eradicate the coca trade. Where to begin? First off, the idea that the US could do such a thing over a small country in a short time is silly - the only similar example is Operation Ranchhand during the Vietnam War, which gave the Vietnamese people the terrible legacy of Agent Orange they endure today. This, however, was a years-long operation, requiring 6,000 separate missions.

Secondly, even if the US could do such a thing, the episode mentioned that in this hypothetical country, coca was the entire basis for the economy. So obviously the US has to destroy it. Huh? The problem with drugs is not that people are making them, it's that people are using them - you can't, with a needle in your arm and cocaine under your nose, claim to be a victim of peasant agriculture.

Yeesh. It's like The West Wing's poor retarded cousin.