Sunshine said (the extra line returns removed painstakingly)

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let me remind you. we have:

1) Hillary

2) Obama

3) Edwards

4) Possibly the retired General Clark

5) Richardson

A great bunch of good candidates considering the fony-ugly looking-liars-mother fuckers on the republican side.

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And look who beat the Democrats two times. The Worst President Ever. You wonder why? Because, stupid as he was, he showed a passion to have the office, and he had a team of people covering up his many flaws - by attacking the Democrats.

The Democrats, Gore and Kerry, were too cowardly and frightened by the people throwing mudballs at them to fight back. And the attacks kept them from pointing out what a failure Bush was, even in his first term. He literally had no opposition, and still doesn't.

Much as everyone assumes that there will be a winning Democratic candidate this year, I'm fully convinced the Democratic Leadership Council will completely screw the pooch this time (and a Republican will show a picture of the Council performing this unnatural act and will have it run as a campaign commercial 24/7).

Heck, a little legal maneuvering and we could get Bush for a third term, and the same idiots will be preening about having the W sticker on their cars.

A foot-destroying but fashionable high heel, of course. Stomping her foot impatiently as her Starbucks toady is ten seconds late delivering her double-latte. The Chicken Lady and the Social Advisor to God is now the Arbeiter of Soul. For the record, nobody that has soul ever defines soul, declares that something or someone has or does not have soul, or even talks about soul.

If by "soul" you mean "inner beauty," of course I'd expect Havrilesky to miss it in Heroes. She couldn't associate herself with anybody who isn't a member of the Pretentious Class. And the angry posts of my fellow geeks, many of whom love Hiro Nakamura and Claire Bennett in a way the Arbeiter of Soul will never understand, will come down upon her head soon.

It is curious that she seems to hate the characters of What About Brian, since she is of their class - or aspires to it. But then, you often hate in others what you hate in yourself. And in this case, her hatred of the show is shared by genuine human beings as well. What was this but a copy of thirtysomething anyway? A show about the problems of people who don't have problems?

ABC may have renewed What About Brian for the same reason that Sledge Hammer, their awful vigilante cop parody show, was renewed for a second season years ago. The competition was unstoppable. ABC had to run something in the slot; they couldn't appear to have given up. Rather than risking a good show, they took an existing series that didn't have huge start-up costs and let it be slaughtered. And ABC's had some spectacular holes this season, with the gooey deaths of The Evidence and Day Break. One of their bigger hits, Dancing with the Stars, only lasts for short runs and can't build an audience when it's not on the air. (No one will watch it in reruns either, killing any syndication income and making it even more expensive.)

As for The Black Donnelleys, after watching it I looked at some episodes of Robert Stack's The Untouchables. Even with the melodrama, the music stings and the robotic behavior of Stack's Elliot Ness, its criminals felt more real. That show was more about the criminals than the cops, and the criminals were played by some of the early 60's best character actors. There was no nonsense about "good boys gone bad." These were bad boys, suffering a weekly Greek tragedy as they went to jail or the grave. No, not even bad boys; bad men, who knew full well the deal they made with Satan and went through with it anyway.

I work at a TV station. I got into this profession - it is NOT a job - because I believe in TV's power. That power is often misused, but when it works, it beats every other medium. It's freer than movies and it brings an actor's facial expressions more importance than film. It's free of the class pretensions of opera, live theater and dance, although TV's worst pretension is when its executives and creative people assume TV has no class.

And that pretension, that TV is for idiots and that only idiots are for TV, is why Havrilesky and her syncopants are wrong. (I call them "syncopants" because what I'd like to call them would get me banned and my car set on fire.)

Either TV is important or it's not. If you think it's not important, just shut up, walk away and go pay Woody Allen to show you his damned pretentious art films. If you think TV has importance enough to discuss, treat it and its viewers with respect.

But to stand there and say, "TV is stupid, so are you, and I'm going to discuss at great length how stupid you are and how FAAAAH-bulous I am" is bad writing and a pathetic way of life.