Equal Time

Now that Fred Thompson has announced his presidential candidacy, some television networks are yanking reruns of Law and Order featuring Thompson's character, District Attorney Arthur Branch, in order to comply with "Equal Time" restrictions. The equal time provisions keep TV networks from biasing the outcome of an election by giving too much exposure to any one candidate. Well, except for candidates who can use their current positions to get on the news. And candidates with a lot of money for ads. So, um, basically the purpose of the law, like that of most laws, is to protect rich incumbent politicians.

Anyway, it occurs to me that pulling Law & Order is a rather crude way of complying with the equal time regulations. I did some "thinking outside the box" this weekend and I came up with a much more elegant solution: Rather than decreasing Fred Thompson's time by pulling his show, why don't we give shows to all the other candidates?

To make it fair, the new shows should be fictional programs rather than news or commentary type shows. And by "fair," I mean "fair to me, the viewer, who doesn't want to see any more O'Reilly Factor or Hannity and Colmes type shows." Here are some suggestions:



McCain: D.C.P.D.

John McCain is a renegade cop who doesn't play by the rules. He saw some bad sh-t in 'Nam, and he doesn't have the patience to deal with the politics of the Washington D.C. Police Department. He's sick of seeing criminals go free because of legal technicalities like "search warrants" and "due process." He's been eligible for a full pension for seventeen years now, and the brass would like nothing more than to see him kicked off the force. But they can't deny that despite his unorthodox methods, McCain gets results. McCain is determined not to give up until he has purged the D.C.P.D. of every dirty cop in its ranks, and he doesn't care how dirty he has to get to do it.





Hillary the Vampire Slayer

In this spinoff of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Hillary Clinton is an archaeologist, cooking show host and mother of triplets who has a terrible secret: She is three sixteenths vampire! With just under a quarter vampire blood coursing through her veins, she has superhuman strength and tolerance for marital infidelity, can take sunlight in small doses and isn't quite creepy enough to be exiled from human society. She must be constantly on guard against her nemesis, Barackula, vampire prince and host of Cooking with Barackula.



Oh, Dennis!

Dennis Kucinich stars as Dennis Kay in this wacky sitcom about an odd looking but funny guy who is married to a vapid and unreasonably hot chick. Dennis is an inventor who makes a moderate income from his one successful invention, spray-on socks. Now he stays at home with their three children while his wife Melissa (Denise Richards) goes to work as the tanning consultant for the Miami Dolphins. He's supposed to be home-schooling the children, but somehow his "lessons" always turn into ideas for another invention. Will they be able to thaw out Rufus the cat before Melissa gets home? Will she ever wise up and leave his dumb ass? Will the children ever learn to read? Find out on Oh, Dennis!

The other advantage of these shows is that if they take off, maybe some of these people will give up politics. Any other ideas? We're going to need a lot more shows if we're going to cover all the candidates.

I'll be back tomorrow with the caption contest poll. Get your captions in by tonight!

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Labels: Politics, TV