"Tsunami, Holocaust, Trent Lott"
"Boston Legal" is well-written and well-acted, and having been introduced to it by my mother around Christmas, I added it to my TiVo season pass around the beginning of the year. It's humorous, with interesting characters, and generally less conducive to brain rot than other television.

But, the jabs at conservatives and the Republican party have had me wishy washy on whether or not I want to keep watching it. The most charismatic and eloquent character, played by James Spader, rarely misses a chance to pin the evil brand on the GOP and conservatives in general. Likewise, one of the firm's name partners, played by Candice Bergen.

Maybe it's because I'm new to the show, but the jabs seem to be getting progressively more vindictive and even hateful. I find myself, on any given night of viewing, wanting to appreciate the show for its plot and characters, but inevitably being unable to put the pointless antagonism out of my mind. I want to sympathise with Alan Shore's (Spader) fight of the night, but find myself pissed off with the character for tossing gratuitous grenades at my personal belief system. Shirley Schmidt (Bergen) is charming enough, but the bile she directs at people who differ from her philosophically manages to spew all over the camera lens and makes it hard to appreciate her.

Meanwhile, characters that are identified as conservatives are portrayed as vapid, greedy, petty and often imbecilic.

So, last night, I'm watching, and just when I thought the barbs couldn't get any worse, Bergen's character dashed across the line that separates the obnoxious from the sincerely hateful. A characteristically moronic Republican woman was in her office. This particular idiot had a laughing problem. Once she started to laugh, she often couldn't stop, unless something terribly sad was mentioned. Earlier in the episode, characters had used various thoughts to take her out of her glee, including "Bambi's mother was shot" and "Bill Buckner" (a reference to the Red Sox first baseman whose error cost the Red Sox the World Series championship in 1986).

So, Ms. Schmidt tries her hand with the hapless buffoon. In rapid succession:

TSUNAMI! (still laughing)

HOLOCAUST!! (still laughing)

TRENT LOTT!!!

Well, that did the trick. Great job! Boston Legal has just made the connection that the rest of us simpler folk had yet to catch. An even causing hundreds of thousands of deaths and unspeakable devastation, the most evil act Western civilization has ever witnessed, and Trent Lott - poster boy for the liberal's image of the quintessential Southern Republican. The subtext was, of course, that, by association, all of us black-hating, Jew-baiting Republicans are Trent Lotts by proxy. As such, we join Trent Lott in being not only equal to, but worse than two of the most hideous events of the past century. "Tsunami, Holocaust, Republicans."

I'm thinking that did the trick. As much as I generally appreciate the other aspects of the show, I found myself unable to look at Bergen the rest of the episode without wishing for the opportunity to fart in close quarters with her. Maybe Spike TV or VH1 has something good on Tuesday nights. - served up by Nomad @ 11:51 AM