Affirmative Action

Watched the series finale of The West Wing last night. Damn. I wasn’t ready for it to be over. Sniff.

And then this morning reality once more mirrors fiction. Turns out President Bush’s own body man, his own Charlie Young, is leaving the White House to go back to school.

Also like Charlie, President Bush’s personal aide, Austinite Blake Gottesman, once dated a First Daughter, in this case the luscious lush known as Jenna Bush. (That’s the blonde one.)

[Tiny and inconsequential spoiler alert.]

Unlike Charlie, young Gottesman isn’t attending Georgetown Law, but instead is going to be attending Harvard Business School.

Also unlike Charlie, not-really-all-that-young Gottesman (he’s 26), never actually graduated college, having only attended world-famous Claremont McKenna College for one year. [Snarkily says the guy who attended—and failed out of—a college that doesn’t even exist any more.]

And yet somehow, amazingly enough, our friend Gottesman got into Harvard Business School.

Huh. I mean…that’s just weird, innit?

I’d always thought Harvard Business School was, you know, considered fairly prestigious. As in one of the very finest schools in the entire world. I wouldn’t have thought they’d so much as glance at a guy who’d never even finished college.

Oh, but wait a second…it occurs to me that there’s a couple famous folks what gradumacated from there. Let me check…yes indeedy, it seems that President George W. Bush himself is an alumnus!

Well, now. What are the damn odds?

Remember: affirmative action is bad, verging on evil. When, that is, it helps out, you know…people of color. When it helps otherwise unqualified fabulously rich white guys and their pals, though, well, that’s just doing things the way God intended.

Comments

[Steve the LLamabutcher]

Kind of how like President Bartlett got that hooker past the DC Bar for Sam?

This tee-vee season has been bad for the fictional presidents: Ex-President Palmer killed, President Bartlett rolled off to the sunset, President Smits canned with troops in Carjackistan, and President Thelma put in deep freeze. At least President Logan is alive for one more week.

Now, if we'd just do the practical thing and elect Thomas Sullivan Magnum IV to be president, all would be well. Magnum, West Wing would be able to solve national security crises, maybe the occasional mystery, not to mention pick up chicks in the new ferrari presidential limo. You could get TC flying Marine One, Rick as Secretary of Homeland Security, and the ghost of Higgins could come in and have persnickity arguments with the ghosts of Andrew Jackson and Millard Filmore.

[fish]

I prefer president Michael Knight who passes on the presidential Suburban for his trusty rusty side kick Kitt. With occasional meta TV references by having special guest stars from Baywatch (lots and lots of special guest stars).

BTW, here is a little more affirmative action for you.

[Scott]

Kind of how like President Bartlett got that hooker past the DC Bar for Sam?

Oh, my friend, you are a bad, bad llama. You just had me spent twenty (quite enjoyable, I admit) minutes on the incomparable Television without Pity fact-checking you. And it appears heck (just in case any young’uns stumbled across The Dial) has frozen over.

You impugn President Jed, sir (and misspell his last name which, oddly, only has two Ts and not three and what’s up with that?). He did NOT get her past the bar. She gradumacated from Georgetown Law School and IF she passed the bar exam…well, I’ll let Josiah say it in his own words:

"You should tell her that if she passes her bar exam, the U.S. Attorney General will personally see to it that she's admitted to the bar. Tell her the President of the United States says congratulations on getting your degree."

So there you go. Just good old-fashioned hard work and no strings pulled unless his political enemies force him to take extra steps to right a moral wrong. Kinda like, you know, affirmative action, in fact!

I’ll make a convert of you yet. :) Well, no, I probably won’t, not least of all because I fear what your fellow llamas would do. They sometimes appear all warm and fuzzy—literally—but they can turn vicious when betrayed. Or so I’ve heard. I've never gotten close enough to an angry llama to be able to confirm or deny.