GUILTY PLEASURES

Since I go to bed at eight p.m. or so [I don't even stay up long enough to see Rachel Maddow], I never ever see prime time television.  But I do have NetFlix, and for the past several days, I have been binge watching episodes of the ABC prime-time series Scandal.  Probably all of you know what it is, but for the purists and early birds among you, Scandal is a political thriller now in its third season that can best be described as West Wing written by the Marquis de Sade.  The central character is Olivia Pope, a "fixer" who is having an affair with the [moderate] Republican president.  The cast is talented and attractive, so naturally I identify with some of them and have strong positive feelings toward others.  The only problem is that everyone in the show, without exception, is a total amoral sleazebag.  Huck, a scruffy charismatic ex-CIA operative, is a torturer and killer who likes his work.  Cyrus, the chief of staff, Mellie, the First Lady, Olivia, and a fatcat donor named Doyle together conspired to steal the election for the president by gimmicking voting machines in Ohio.  Murder, corruption, vote fixing, bribery, torture, treason, and common ordinary spying are the stock in trade of the entire cast.  The only person thus far who seems not to be in on the crime wave is the fanatic right wing bible-spouting Vice President [played, Google tells me, by the daughter of Richard Burton, no less!]  The Democratic governor from whom the election was stolen gets away with killing his wife's lover [the contractor redoing their house], and then tries to blackmail the president into putting him on a unity ticket for reelection.

I will run out of episodes pretty soon, at which point I can return to commenting on the real world of politics, peopled by the likes of Ted Cruz and Rand Paul and Mike Lee, who cannot hold a candle to the characters in Scandal.

By the way, Kerry Washington, the beautiful young Black woman who plays Olivia Pope, spoke at the 2012 Democratic Nominating Convention.