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House of Cards: Enough Already!

To channel Maureen Dowd, I always liked Kevin Spacey.

When is Frank Underwood (portrayed by the remarkable Spacey) going to realize that the jig is up?

I just finished watching season 5 of House of Cards on Netflix, and as expected, the Underwood’s are still very much alive and kicking in the House of Ruthless.

Frank Underwood has resigned from the nation’s highest office, and his wife Claire has now assumed the presidency without pardoning her mobster husband for his high crimes and misdemeanors, setting in motion the cliff hanger for next season.

I’m one of the biggest fans of House of Cards, but it’s getting much too predictable, losing its dramatic grip, seeing the Underwood’s, with the cards stacked against them, surviving unscathed season after season.

When the British version of the House of Cards premiered in 1990, starring the brilliant Ian Richardson as the manipulative and corrupt Francis Urquhart, a fictional Chief Whip of the Conservative Party, the series only lasted three seasons.

As it should have.

There’s only so many murders and blackmailing schemes you can commit, before cold-blooded malfeasance has run its course.

With plans to go into a sixth season, Kevin Spacey and his producers are treating their audience like chumps.

Such grotesque murders as depicted over the last few seasons would be a little more credible if this were the Sopranos or the Corleone family.

But with characters having set their sights on the pinnacle of power, the White House, the award-winning drama is looking lamer every season, with a quick murder here, a blackmail there, to cement their power.

I don’t even think Al Capone, Lucky Luciano, or Bugsy Siegel, could have gotten away with these many ridiculous murders and blackmails before being cut down to size.

But, apparently, anything is possible on the House of Cards, even if it lacks credibility.

Were some of our most unscrupulous presidents, such as Richard Nixon (Tricky Dick) and Bill Clinton (Slick Willy), really capable of cold-blooded murder or pushing enemies down the stairs in order to remain in power?

Speaking of cold-blooded murders, the House of Cards makes it appear that the drama is taking place in Mayberry R.F.D. rather than Washington D.C. How plausible was it really to have Frank Underwood throw Zoe Barnes into the subway tracks with not a person or video camera in sight in one of the nation’s most congested subway or metro tracks?

Similarly, Claire Underwood poisons her lover, Tom Yates, without anyone in the neighborhood seeing him enter a big gorgeous house in a most likely well populated D.C. neighborhood.

Either the creators of House of Cards are asking viewers to play along and stretch their imagination to its limits, or they are treating viewers like morons.

Whatever theory you subscribe to, the House of Cards has lost its dramatic punch.

Even worse than losing its chutzpah, the House of Cards is just (yawn!) predictable.

From the very first episode of each new season, viewers are guaranteed that Frank and Claire Underwood, no matter how ominous their predicament, will come out smelling like roses, having outfoxed their frail, weak-kneed adversaries.

Three seasons of such shenanigans might have been believable, but now that the show is moving into its sixth season, all the air has been sucked out of it.

The final flaw in the show, I believe, is the producers puzzling need to duplicate everything that is going on in real life in Washington with the Obama and Trump administrations, to such a point that its comes off as downright ridiculous.

Just this season alone, for example, we have ICO, a terrorist group (in place of ISIS), we’ve had hacked networks (in place of the Russian hacks during the 2016 presidential election), leaks galore, the videotaping of everyone (as if they were living in communist China); they even went so far as to duplicate President Obama overseeing the raid on Osama bin Laden’s Pakistan compound by having President Claire Underwood overseeing the capture of an elusive ICO terrorist.

Is it not possible to present a political thriller these days without duplicating everything that is going on in Washington?

And besides, does the House of Cards really stand a chance competing against the headlines of Politico, with a president in office, who is just one explosive tweet away from an impeachable offense or a nuclear showdown with some rogue nation?

Like him or not, Trump always draws higher ratings than his competitors.

At some point, Kevin Spacey and the entire cast of House of Cards, need to cash in their chips and admit the jig is up.

Fool us once, shame on you, fool us for five seasons, shame on your loyal viewers.

--Bill Lucey

[email protected]

June 22, 2017

Book Review: Why Hillary Clinton Lost the 2016 Presidential Election

For those hoping to understand why a seasoned political veteran like Hillary Clinton lost to a real estate mogul and reality TV star with little political experience, look no further than political reporters Jonathan Allen (Sidewire and Roll Call) and Amie Parnes (Hill Magazine) superb, well sourced, “Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton’s Doomed Campaign.”

Though there will always be serious questions raised if Vladimir Putin, WikiLeaks, and former FBI Director James Comey obstructed Hillary’s seemingly clear path to the White House, Allen and Parnes, after talking to a number of people with keen insight into Clinton’s campaign (almost exclusively on background) show that the former Secretary of State’s stunning loss could be attributed to her own self-inflicted errors, namely, putting her name to the Clinton Foundation, and making speeches to Wall Street Banks during a time of rising populism when her Republican opponent was promising to burn down the house or drain the swamp.

Most damaging of all, of course, were those “damn emails’’ and her home brewed private server, which raised serious (bordering on criminal) questions whether she was sharing classified government information on her private email account; an issue that dogged her right up until Election Day.

Beyond the self-inflicted wounds, Allen and Parnes make a convincing case that the Clinton campaign was never able to advance a compelling narrative over why she was running for president. “Hillary’s speeches,” the authors write, “lacked a connection to an idea higher than herself.”

The other malfunction in her campaign centered on a dysfunctional campaign staff with no clear ring leader like a James Carville or David Axelrod. There were competing factions within her campaign, all trying to win her favor (to secure their position in her administration) instead of trying to win an election and offering constructive tough love, which made Robby Mook’s (Hillary’s campaign manager) task that much tougher.

Arguably, the biggest oversight, which crippled her campaign was in the midst of gathering African American, Latinos, college educated whites, and women into her camp, she forgot about the working class whites in the suburbs and rural counties, who still felt the painful brunt of the Great Recession, which President Obama never resolved, making them feel alienated from her crusade.

White non-Hispanic voters preferred Trump over Clinton by 21 percentage points (58 percent to 37 percent), according to the exit poll conducted by Edison Research for the National Election Pool.

Among whites, moreover, Trump won an overwhelming share of those without a college degree. According to the Pew Research Center, two-thirds (67 percent) of non-college whites cast their vote for Trump, compared with just 28 percent who supported Clinton, resulting in a 39-point advantage for Trump among this group.

Unquestionably, Bernie chipping away at her problematic ties to Wall Street (in a rigged system) and Comey with his hurricane like revelations of unfinished email investigations, inflicted a great deal of damaging scar tissue on the Democratic nominee.

Still, the authors make a point of noting that Hillary blamed Russia and Comey most of all for her loss, but would never take a hard look at herself and conclude her biggest failing: she never developed a narrative on why she should be president, other than it was her turn in line.

She was always too afraid to distance herself from Obama for fear of losing what was to her eyes--a rock solid coalition: African-Americans, Latinos, and women, leaving Sander's young idealistic progressives and working class whites in the dust.

--Bill Lucey

June 3, 2017