I certainly did not expect producer David E. Kelley to provide a fair and balanced viewpoint of the McCain-Obama Presidential election, given the fact that the show has at its core the Alan Shore character. But at the very start of this past Monday's episode, senior law partner Shirley Schmidt has flown to battleground state Colorado to vote because she knows her vote (clearly for Obama) will mean more there, than in Taxachusetts where Obama was already a lock.
Alan Shore and Denny Crane begin to quarrel as Alan obviously suspects, but can't actually believe that Denny is going to vote for McCain. The producers/writers always have had Crane voice preposterous, caveman-like strident views, while Shore articulates well-reasoned, irrefutable, intuitively-obvious points of view. Denny refuses to let Alan bait him into an argument, but confirms that he will be supporting McCain. Alan is taken aback and is incredulous at the very thought that ANYONE, never mind his best friend, could possibly support McCain. How could anyone vote for four more years of the same? [Obviously Alan is a Koolaid-drinking Obamacon. McCain openly differed with Bush on Iraq, key legislation and policies and heavily criticized the expansion of Medicare drug benefits without funding; he has criticized Bush's fiscal deficit record.] He offers Denny a deal: he suspects that Denny can't even give him 2 reasons to support McCain, and he promises to keep his mouth shut while Denny gives his reasons. Denny promptly gives two ludicrous reasons (not involving campaign issues). Alan goes berserk and starts repeatedly screaming, "Maverick!" Denny returns fire, chanting "Change!" And then they decide to resolve their differences, as all good lawyers do, with an old-fashioned exchange of paint ball, where each lands over a dozen shots on the other.
The main legal battle of this episode involves Valerie Bertinelli playing a cattle rancher whom wants the ability to medically protect her cattle against "mad cow" disease; the Department of Agriculture, on behalf of the cattle ranchers association, is attempting to stop her, primarily because they seem to think that Valerie's character is going to use her proactive treatment to market her product to differentiate it as safer than competitive products which have been government-inspected. [Actually, a conservative doesn't have a problem with product differentiation. There is more of a question of whether the cattle are being treated as advertised and the legitimacy of any claimed benefits over other inspected meats. We would be more concerned about the government's mandate of additional various treatments or other costs which do not affect product quality and which we cannot pass along to the customer.] Shore wins as the judge dismisses the case.
The end of the episode shows the various characters voting, mostly in Boston, and we fade to the two colleagues sipping drinks and smoking cigars. Alan asks, in a resigned tone, whether Denny voted and whom he voted for. Denny admits that he decided to vote for Obama. Alan, in an Obamanian ecstatic rapture, shares a kumbaya moment with Denny, professing his eternal love and friendship, both having followed the Pied Piper of Failed Liberalism across his make-work Bridge to Nowhere. I suspect as the writers wrap up this final season of "Boston Legal", that Denny's decision to vote for Obama is the first confirmation of Alzheimer's, because clearly he forgot McCain's record of bipartisan leadership, his expertise in military and foreign policy, and fidelity to the concept of limited government, taxation, and spending, he forgot what happened to Bill Clinton's pledge of a middle-class tax cut in 1992, and what a Democratic Congress passed the next year (a tax hike), and what happened when Hoover also raised the high bracket tax rate following the 1929 crash. Denny also forgot that Obama is a fourth-year senator having spent the last two years running for President, no significant legislation to his name, no administrative, military or foreign policy experience.
I for one am sick and tired of cartoonish portrayals of conservatives or Republicans in TV, where liberals are portrayed as enlightened, tolerant, knowledgeable and incisive--and conservatives as prejudiced, anti-scientific, xenophobic, jingoistic, manipulated by moneyed interests, and obsessed with guns, Bibles, debunking climate change, and sex and marriage.
With one of the few exceptions of "Family Ties", where the former hippie Keaton's had strident conservative eldest son Alex, you've rarely seen TV shows feature conservative characters in a positive light. Story writers need to understand that conservative caricatures aren't as interesting
