My wife and I finished watching the third season of The Wire the other night. We’ve enjoyed the series immensely, with its complex characters, excellent acting, fascinating story, and unsentimental look at cops and crime in Baltimore. Some have asked whether The Wire is conservative. I say no, though it isn’t liberal either. To some extent, that simple fact makes it more conservative than an awful lot of TV entertainment. A major theme in the second season is union corruption. There’s also a great scene in the third seasion, in episode nine or so, in which a guy who is trying to open a small gym learns he needs to get permits from city hall. So he visits the bureaucrats, who proceed to do their very best to crush his entrepreneurial spirit. It’s almost a commercial for business deregulation.

Anyway, I decided to re-watch the third season’s final episode, with the DVD commentary turned on, so that I could listen to David Simon’s discussion. Within minutes, he was explaining how the third season is a big metaphor for the war in Iraq–the first episode begins with the demolition of a high-rise housing project (get it? kind of like 9/11!), and it isn’t long before a gang war erupts, based in part of faulty intelligence (get it? kind of like…), lots of people die needless deaths (get it?), etc. Simon identifies a certain gangster kingpin as a stand-in for President Bush. We’re also treated to wisdom such as “capitalism is not a social policy.”

Geez o’Pete! I’m going to keep on watching The Wire, and hope that I can remain grateful that the shows are better than the commentary.