Fly On The Wall Programming

Back in March of 2014, Barack Obama appeared on the Ellen DeGeneres show. His reasons were, of course, to push his health care plan and to assure the American people that all is well with it. While it is arguable that the Obamacare situation at the time was under control, DeGeneres asked the president if he ever watched the television show ‘Scandal‘ or ‘House of Cards‘.

Both television shows are remarkable views into the darker side of Washington D.C. and both of raise questions about whether or not scandals, cover-ups and conspiracies run rampant in the nation’s capital.

While Obama acknowledged that he watched ‘House Of Cards,’ starring Kevin Spacey and Robyn Wright, he claims that Michelle is a fan of ‘Scandal’ – an even darker look into Washington starring Kerry Washington.

Both shows have won awards as well written and acted television. ‘House of Cards’ isn’t even a cable or network show and is an exclusive download for Netflix subscribers. Many agree that the story of a corrupt politician using his power to get to the presidency is well worth the monthly payment and Netflix has even upped its monthly rate to meet the demand for another season of the show.

‘Scandal’ is apparently loosely based on a crisis management firm in Washington D.C. called Smith & Company. The firm is run by Judy A. Smith who was a former adviser to the Bush Administration. Her firm has advised such notable people as Monica Lewinsky, actor Wesley Snipes, and NFL quarterback Michael Vick.

Obama had told DeGeneres that both shows are nothing like Washington and the most of what he deals with on a day to day basis are just men in suits and really wouldn’t be all that interesting for a television show. The President basically said that really there is no real corruption in Washington D.C. and that there are no scandals to speak of.

I personally finished watching ‘House of Cards’ about a month ago and have just begun watching ‘Scandal’. Both are great shows and both set the mind to ponder why that now we have two shows opening up the dialogue about a corrupt Washington D.C. and the scandals, cover ups and conspiracies that plague, not only an administration, but the entire “beltway.”

There have been television drama’s like Aaron Sorkin’s ‘The West Wing‘ that presented the White House in a respectful way and his HBO series ‘The Newsroom‘ is a veiled attempt at spinning a lot the media that vilifies Obama; however, in a post-Bush era, we have gone from handling Washington with kid gloves to exposing through fiction a malignancy that has more blood pooling around it than a “Game of Thrones” episode.

The question is just how much of this malignancy is fact and how much is fiction. Here have been a number of critics and writers that comment that these shows along with others like ‘The Americans‘ on FX and Showtime’s successful ‘Homeland‘ are taking predictive programming to a new level and are creating a sort of “fly on the wall” theater where human lives are destroyed by political scandals and where some people become political footballs and are kicked around by the rich and powerful.

Obama would have you believe that it is all boring and that Washington has nowhere near the drama that is presented in these televisions series. However, there seems to be a list of scandals and corruption that seem to be piling up and there is no crisis management firm in the world that is going to be able to repair the damage that the Obama administration has done to the American people.

What most of these television shows present is a very simple and believable theme and that is Washington has been taken over by a band of opportunistic psychopaths and incompetents.

In the movie ‘The Godfather‘, “Michael Corleone implied that there is a hazy line between politicians and gangsters,“ as Vanity Fair points out in their article ‘Washington Noir‘.

Now it seems that this line is not so hazy anymore and that one really does not need a running fiction about a corrupt Washington. All you need to do is tally up the list of scandals and corruption cases that the mainstream news avoids – or at least tried to bury in their news cycle.

The media will go to great lengths to try and dispel any and all conspiracy theories about corruption in the Obama White House, however the laundry list of corruption piles up, a list that would make the writers of ‘Scandal’ green with envy.

From Obama targeting his enemies with the IRS to the Benghazi investigation, there are many different scandals now plaguing the Obama White House. And let’s not forget about ‘Fast and Furious‘, which is also the name of a popular media franchise whose lead actor recently died in a strange, high-speed car crash – just like Rolling Stone reporter Michael Hastings. More on him in a moment…

Now we can add one more scandal and possible breaking of the law with the news this morning of the trade between high ranking Taliban prisoners and a military deserter and possible enemy sympathizer Bowe Bergdahl.

It is usually fiction that is inspired by real events; however, in this world of “fly on the wall” political programming we begin to see life-imitate-art in the case of Bowe Bergdahl.

The present story echoes all-too-eerily like the pilot episode of HBO’s ‘Homeland’. Like that HBO series, this real-life story revolves around an American soldier who got taken as a prisoner of war by terrorists while battling on foreign soil.

As Fred Henstridge writes in his piece, ‘Hero or Something Else,’:

“Having spent five years in captivity (and having grown a large beard a la Damian Lewis’ on-screen character), Bergdahl just got released and is now heading back to his homeland in Hailey, Idaho.

But the comparisons don’t end there. In fact, this is only the beginning. After he was captured in Afghanistan by Haqqanigroup terrorists, his then-19-year-old lover Monica Lee actively participated in protests to get him freed. But as years went by, the efforts waned and she got on with her life. Bergdahl himself told her in one of the messages his captors let him sent out to not wait for him.

Having thought that Bergdahl may never return, she began dating someone new.”

Now Bowe Bergdahl is in the middle of a controversial release where Obama traded his release for five Taliban jihadists that were being held at Guantanamo Bay prison.

The reunion of Monica Lee and Bergdahl will be awkward because Lee now is with someone else. That also happens on ‘Homeland’.

The only thing that does not seem to be a match with the series is that the main character Nicholas Brody was turned by al-Qaeda while in captivity. However, there are rumors that Bergdahl assisted his captors and that he may secretly be a turned terrorist.

The Daily Mail reported that, “Bowe Bergdahl was captive for so long and held under such harsh conditions that he may have even forgotten how to speak English. His parents hinted that the Taliban prisoner of war may have to relearn his native language during the press conference that announced he had been freed after five years.”

Now here is where it begins to sound more like a script from the TV show ‘Scandal’.

President Barack Obama’s trading of the five jailed jihadists held in Guantanamo for one American soldier without congressional approval is against the law. Federal law requires Congress to be notified before prisoners are transferred.

As The Daily Caller points out, “Obama used a Rose Garden press event to tout the surprise trade — which he won by making critical, last-minute concessions — while the parents of the freed soldier, Bowe Bergdahl, stood alongside.”

After that, what would be a great script idea for ‘Scandal’ immediately becomes an even better plot point for a revival of the ‘Twilight Zone’.

The Daily Caller continues, “At the end of the brief event, the soldier’s father, Bob Bergdahl, recited the most frequent phrase in the Koran — “Bismillah ir-Rahman ir-Rahim” — which means “In the name of Allah, most Gracious, most Compassionate.”

After Bergdahl finished his statement and his praise for Allah, Obama hugged him.”

What is even creepier is the men that were released from Guantanamo makes this whole affair seems worse than anything ‘Scandal’ or ‘House of Cards’ could come up with. This is edging closer to an episode of ‘Fringe‘ where in some weird dimensional glitch our President – without congressional approval – released dangerous men from prison. Here’s the list from the Gateway Pundit:

“** Mohammed Fazl – commanded the main force fighting the U.S.-backed Northern Alliance in 2001, and served as chief of army staff under the Taliban regime. Fazl slaughtered thousands of Shiites.

** Mullah Norullah Noori – served as governor of Balkh province in the Taliban regime and played some role in coordinating the fight against the Northern Alliance.

** Mohammed Nabi Omari – the Taliban’s chief of communications and helped al Qaeda members escape from Afghanistan to Pakistan.

** Khairullah Khairkhwa – most prominent position was as governor of Herat province from 1999 to 2001, and he was alleged to have been “directly associated” with Osama bin Laden.

** Abdul Haq Wasiq – deputy chief of the Taliban regime’s intelligence service. His cousin was head of the service.”

What has just happened?

Has Barack Obama endangered the lives of Americans and is this, by definition, treason? Is this some sort of unconditional surrender? After all, Obama just said the war will officially be over in 2016.

Is this the beginning of some sort of haphazard way to compromise with known terrorists – or is there something more to this out-of-left-field decision?

The power of suggestion exists in all of the scandalous television versions of how Washington D.C. operates but one cannot nor would be able to fathom the “fly on the wall” programming that leads to some sort of foul play where a president actually bears his neck on the chopping block for the sake of one deserter soldier.

What is the point, and how will this story be bent to replace the Benghazi scandal as a grievous act against American interest?

It has all of the earmarks of a grand conspiracy and the theories that will rise because of the strange bedfellows that brought us to this point.

The first real story of the Bergdahl case was brought to us in Rolling Stone magazine in 2012. The journalist who first told us of his plight and the publishing of his anti–American e-mails was none other than Michael Hastings.

Yes, the Michael Hastings that died mysteriously in a car crash after he threatened to blow the whistle on Barack Obama and his poor relationship with the military.

Hastings went into detail about how soldiers were being “used” in a machine ran by incompetents and psychopaths. He cited Bergdahl’s e-mails and it was actually a given that the young soldier was about to go AWOL.

In his last remarks to his parents before his capture, Bergdahl wrote: “I am sorry for everything, the horror that is America is disgusting.”

Hastings, of course, would never see Bergdahl come home, but there may be something that we can learn from all of the horror and fear that will be generated by Bergdahl’s return and that is America is no longer a place where idealists can feel safe. Especially idealists that join the military expecting war to be fair and without its sick and twisted slaughter.

We can also learn that in the throes of crisis management and in the midst of a list of scandals there is always a point where crisis management and “fly on the wall “programming can be used to create a shiny new talking point that will get our minds off of the Veterans Administration fiasco and the firing of VA Secretary Eric Shiniseki.

Just like in an episode of ‘Scandal’, the crew can all high-five each other and say “mission accomplished” – that is until the GOP decides to offer up articles of impeachment for Barack Obama.

That will be another episode in this Washington sideshow.