9/12/00 9:00 a.m.
Democratic Convention, Part II
The Emmys as political theater.

Robert A. George is an editorial page writer
for the New York Post------------------------------------RAGGEDmail@aol.com

orgive average Republicans if they wonder how come the Democrats get a second, post-Labor Day convention when the GOP doesn't. If you missed it, you must not have been watching Sunday's Emmy Awards. It would have been easy to mistake the ceremony for an infomercial salute to Democratic Party 2000 values. MTV may put on a narcissistic celebration of itself (see NRO Weekend), but the Hollywood types know that they can accomplish a whole lot more with their awards show.

Going into Sunday evening, everyone knew that the contest for the most awards would come down to two dramas — The West Wing and The Sopranos. The former stars Martin Sheen and is about an ersatz Clinton White House (all the earnest goody-goody liberalism without the sleaze). The latter, focused as it is on the life and times of a fictional Mob family, might actually strike some conservatives as an ersatz Clinton White House of a different sort. Anyway, both series had 18 nominations. Insiders recognized that the White House drama had a lot of momentum going into the big night, but The Sopranos had also been nominated last year, so there was every reason to believe that the gangsters might have an edge over the bureaucrats.

Fughedaboutit!!!! It was a rout for the White House the likes of which haven't been seen since the '95-'96 government shutdowns. The West Wing won five awards on-air (plus four technical awards doled out earlier). The fictional White House communications director and press secretary both got acting awards (people who watched George Stephanopoulos and Mike McCurry for years undoubtedly thought this richly deserved) — plus awards for direction, writing, and the big one, Outstanding Drama Series.

The only win for the New Jersey mobsters was for Tony Soprano himself. James Gandolfini upset Martin ("President Josiah Bartlet") Sheen for Outstanding Performance by a Lead Actor. Yet, if you think about it, this seems to almost match the polls that show that the public loves the job Clinton his doing--his administration — but disapprove of him personally. Don't those same polls show that that antipathy is one of the reasons why Gore is only in a dead heat with Bush, despite the remarkable economy?

Now, it is true that conservatives can whine too much when it comes to noting the biases of Hollywood. But The West Wing is uniquely insidious. Does it have objectively "good" performances? Yes, to a point. But it is still basically agitprop for the Democratic party. Anyone who saw the episode where a staffer comes up with using the obscure Antiquities Act (declaring certain federal lands historic-preservation sites) to outfox some "evil" congressional Republicans can see how much the show stacks the deck. Does Al Gore write this stuff? One winner, director Tommy Schlamme, noted that he is the son of immigrants who fled Nazi Germany (neat! just like Hadassah Lieberman!). He talked about how much he was honored to be able to work on a show that demonstrates hope.

Now, to be somewhat fair, it should be noted that entertainment-award shows of this sort are going to be a reasonable mixture of political correctness and sentimentality. Thus, liberal sensibilities are going to peek through. So, the HBO miniseries The Corner about Baltimore junkies was a multiple winner, as was Oprah Winfrey's "Tuesdays with Morrie" about an old man dying. A Michael J. Fox retiring because of Parkinson's disease was appropriately honored. And, to host Garry Shandling's credit, overt Republican-bashing was held to a minimum. His best joke: He auditioned to play the vice president in The West Wing, but was turned down because he was "too Jewish."

But the not-so-subliminal Democratic boosting at the Emmys still pushed through. Are gays exerting their political influence by getting Clinton and Gore to support "hate crimes" legislation, as well as the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), which would make gays a protected class? Well, the cast of NBC's Will And Grace (both gay and straight) campaigned against California's same-sex marriage initiative. Of course, it was honored with Outstanding Comedy Series and two supporting-actor awards.

But the triumph of The West Wing also follows the Gore-Lieberman party line in another significant way. The day after The Sopranos — filled with profanity and cable-level violence — was soundly defeated by the idealistically pure liberal show, the Democratic ticket unveiled its latest attack vehicle: threatening makers of violent movies and video games with FTC oversight. Is this a blatant abuse of Washington regulatory power? Of course. Does it begin to infringe upon the First Amendment? Oh yeah.

But what did the once-rebellious Hollywood establishment say? Yes, sir, may we have another. We are eager to show that we are willing to conform to middle-class values.