Both characters annoyed me in essence, I suspect, because they were such perfect specimens of a particularly common and grating type of contemporary American: the Priggish Urban Liberal-Progressive Busybody Knowitall Pseudointellectual Snob. And in doing so, the show conveyed a point of view firmly based on authoritarianism, exemplifying the contemporary worldview that the political writer Jonah Goldberg calls liberal fascism.

I imagine that the unappealing character type at the center of Law and Order: Criminal Intent hardly requires any further description for most readers, as it thoroughly infests current-day TV news and talk shows, newspaper columns, Slate and the Huffington Post and other fashionable politico-cultural websites, contemporary art shows, your neighborhood Starbucks, and other such locales made repellant by their presence.

Sunday night’s episode on the USA Network, the last in the series, had a story line typical of the show’s ten-season run. Several people fighting over profits from a highly popular website are the suspects in the murders of two of the parties in the legal dispute over ownership of the site. Once again, that is, the culprits are big-business bigwigs, which makes for more interesting settings than the usual domestic violence or street crimes that most murders result from, but it is of course ludicrously fanciful for a show that has been fairly realistic in its depiction of police procedures (and which the producers seemed to take a good deal of pride in). In that way Law and Order: Criminal Intent was a thoroughly conventional example of the mystery-crime genre.

The show’s distinguishing feature was Det. Goren’s interest in pursuing each case through an unsystematic but highly intense amateur psychological examination of the various suspects, as suggested in the show’s title. These motives typically showed all Americans outside the East Coast elite as being infected with a variety of irrational and dangerous thoughts.

Chief among these, the show made clear, is religion, and by that they meant Christianity, not religion in general. From the very first season, this was established as an important element of the show. Episode four, “The Faithful,” dealt with a financial scandal in a Catholic church, and in episode eleven, “The Third Horseman,” both Goren and Eames explicitly state their pro-abortion views. (The assistant district attorney, played by Courtney B. Vance, briefly states that he is anti-abortion, but this is quickly dismissed, and one can see that the producers are giving him a free pass for occasional political correctness because the character is black. The racist implications of that free pass are interesting, by the way, and would have been unusual and valuable for the show to explore, but of course that was unlikely given that they are clearly the producers’ own attitudes.)

The progressive-authoritarian political agenda was strongly evident in the story lines and dialogue throughout the run of the series, but D’Onofrio and Erbe added much to the effect by conveying it continually through their facial expressions, gestures, and vocal inflections. The smug looks they passed to each other during their interrogations of suspects were downright insufferable, given the enormous power these detectives were given to detain people, subject them to intense questioning, and manipulate them psychologically in the attempt to send them to prison for felonies. The unfairness of the situation must strike most people as appalling, but it seems perfectly natural to these urban progressive-authoritarian prigs, and evidently to the producers. (I suspect that audiences’ discomfort with the Goren character is one thing that kept the show from attaining consistent popularity.)

And in accordance with contemporary progressive-authoritarian shibboleths, the thing that most powerfully offends Goren and Eames is hypocrisy. They accept degenerate behavior as none of their business, except when engaged in by people who claim to stand for decency and righteousness. Of course, Goren and Eames stand for decency and righteousness while abusing their authority, but that’s never brought into question. Hypocrisy is not a flaw when progressive-authoritarian prigs engage in it.

Speaking of intimidation, throughout the run of the series D’Onofrio was notable for his habit of looming into an individual’s personal space by edging ever-closer to the person, using his size (he is tall, bulky, and pudgy) to intimidate them. This was something Goren seemed particularly inclined to do to wealthy, successful people. The poor, by contrast, didn’t usually get that sort of treatment. Of course, since the latter were seldom actual suspects and had little sense of personal power, he had less desire to intimidate them, as he seemed well aware that the crimes he was chosen to investigate were always committed by the rich and powerful, and in particular those from the private sector, not government.

This season, D’Onofrio brought the physical intimidation to a new and even more disturbing level. In each episode he would at some point or another grab, push, or lean against a suspect, progressing from mere  looming to actual physical contact. He would use just a little extra but nonetheless noticeable excessive force in shoving a person into a chair or through a door. In every instance, moreover, the person thus ill-treated is not under arrest but merely a “person of interest.” Tellingly, Goren always stops just short of actions that would be clearly identifiable as police brutality. This strikes me as even more sinister, cowardly, and unjustifiable. In not one case does the suspect protest against this mistreatment. This I find especially revealing of the producers’ intent, as it suggests to the viewer that this is to be taken as perfectly normal and acceptable behavior.

And although Goren often got into trouble within the department during the course of the series, it was a result of his battles with his superiors, not his intimidation of suspects. Here too, the show indicates a thoroughly authoritarian point of view: you answer to your superiors, not the public.

Of course, it’s important to acknowledge that Law and Order: Criminal Intent had a good many appealing characteristics. The New York City settings were usually interesting, the plots were often somewhat engrossing, and the guest characters introduced in each episode were frequently quite astutely observed and portrayed. The show was often very effective television, though it was never very popular. In addition, the central characters of series often stated a laudable, liberal appreciation for diversity, freedom, and other such ideals. Unfortunately, this comes off as little more than cant, given their authoritarian behavior. Yet the statement of the sentiments has some value, I presume. Moreover, the central characters clearly are trying to do good, to bring criminals to justice and help strengthen the social order.

In addition, it’s important to remember that the depiction of an action or personality trait in a work of art or culture does not in itself prove that the creator approves of it. In the case of Law and Order: Criminal Intent, however, the consistency of the behavior of the lead characters and its conformity with the choice of story lines and villains makes it clear that the show is conveying a particular mentality. Other detectives occasionally featured in the series, played by Christopher Noth and Jeff Goldblum (when D’Onofrio’s personal problems forced the producers to remove him from the lead role), were not quite as obvious in conveying this smugness, but it’s notable that the producers always returned to D’Onofrio as protagonist and kept him in place for the entire final season this spring. (In fact, Noth’s character was not a priggish urban progressive-authoritarian at all, but that was because his character had been brought over from the show’s parent series, Law and Order.)

In all, then, I think it’s clear that the show sends a consistent and obvious message, conveyed through the central characters’ continual physical, psychological, and legal intimidation of people not convicted of any crime or even under formal arrest.

It is this: we are living in a police state, a society in which the government has unlimited authority over the individual. And this, the producers appear strongly to suggest, is a good thing, as it results in the restoration of order at the end of each episode (albeit with the occasional cheesy irony or fashionable ambiguity), as mysteries tend to do. The fact that this “order” involves the reduction of citizens into subjects, of taxpayers into servants of a privileged elite through the continual threat of violence by police, seems of little consequence to the producers, as it is never dealt with fundamentally and critically in the show’s story lines.

It is an implication evident from any reasonably attentive watching of the show, as the analysis here suggests, and there are only two ways it can have happened. One, the attitude is so ingrained in the producers’ minds that they did not notice it, or, two, they consciously intended it. I think that the former is probably the case, but ultimately it doesn’t matter. In its essence and despite some surface claims of approval of liberty, Law and Order: Criminal Intent is thoroughly authoritarian in its implications. I, for one, am not at all sad to see it go.

About that oft forgotten and abandoned piece of real estate called Indiana?!

It’s shot in a landscape-portrait, documentary style that memorializes a smaller than small town high school, basketball team?!

A movie suspended in a repeatedly evangelical universe that counts prayer as the major source of miracles?!

That set of profoundly un-Hollywood ideas had me thanking God for them as I watched ‘Hoosiers’ today.

Hadn’t I seen it before?

Well, portions of it.

That, however, was when I was merely on my way to one of the great fast-tracks for losers, full-blown alcoholism.

At that time, I was in too much of a hurry to contemplate even the possibility of being a loser.

The ultimate message of ‘Hoosiers,’ delivered with fully committed reverence from all involved, declares that losers, when joined in teamwork with fellow losers, can help make each other winners.

Of course, that is the underlying message of Alcoholics Anonymous: let go let God … and He will find you your “team”!

That initially preposterous premise has been miraculously affirmed in my life and those of countless other fellow boozers.

My life can be roughly sketched as a trip from being the haunted character played by Gene Hackman to that fall down bum of a drunk so irresistibly embodied by the late, one-of-a-kind, legendary child of the Sixties, Dennis Hopper.

My passionate commitment to having “range” as an actor spilled over into my life and … well, I was never one to live by half measures.

There’s a conundrum posed by Hoosiers, a mystical challenge that echoes in repeated contradictions!

One never gives up on human beings, even though they defy every ounce of your good advice.

Every human being, including those slaughtered in the womb by abortion, are Ordinary Miracles.

The Liberal opposition to capital punishment is based on that … but these PEDS, Progressive Enlightened Despots, still want abortion.

Abortion is the ultimately homicidal pedophilia!

Recently I learned that many people don’t acknowledge their own contradictions about life.

Progressives, like their favorite President Barack Obama, trot out their sympathy for criminals and Gaza terrorists and butcher their own infants with legalized abortion while they do it.

Then again, they haven’t had the mysterious privilege of having attended regular meetings with a bunch of fellow alcoholics.

The ravages of multiple heart by-pass surgery make my voice now sound like I still drink.

I haven’t had a drink for over six years.

The scars of the booze and cigarettes on my voice I now wear with pride.

You can actually hear it in the voice quality of a number of exceptional actors and actresses.

 Yup, they’re either heavy drinkers … or have been.

My favorite ex in the world of wine and whiskey is Elaine Stritch.

I adore that woman!

NO ONE could sing ‘Ladies Who Lunch’ with the torn genius of Elaine Stritch!

Ethel Merman could possibly get close.

The difference between Stritch and Merman, the better singer, was the profoundly piercing acting genius Elaine has that Merman could never approach.

Check this out to see what self-flagellating but excruciatingly hilarious pain exists in Elaine’s Unsurpassable Public Rendition of Ladies Who Lunch:

—–

There she is!

After hearing it, replay it to hear her voice on the word “laugh” when she says “everybody laugh” … or “hat” when she says “does anyone … still wear … a hat?”

There’s the kind of tragic insight you’d expect watching the star of Euripides’ Medea!

Or the terrified look on her face when she says, following one of her pain-soaked rages, “I’ll drink to that!”

Does that tell us anything about the infinite and painfully earned wisdom of Elaine Stritch?

And when she hollers, “DIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS”!!

Only surpassed by the drunken and desperately belligerent but heart-stopping noise of “Riiise! Riiise! Riiiiiise! … NINE OF THEM!

My favorite Shakespearean actor, William Hutt of Canada, performed King Lear and, upon dealing with the death of his beloved daughter, Cordelia, did much the same thing with the seemingly infinite repetitions of the word “never … never … never … “

In Stephen Sondheim’s COMPANY, Elaine Stritch was a veritable, standing, desert dry martini itself singing to her own demise!!

A female King Lear!!

Every syllable, sound and silence is such nakedly sublime self-loathing … “One For Mahler!”

For the fashionable prejudices against Mahler – shared I think by Sondheim himself – shared by more than those who can look down on The Ladies Who Lunch, read this.

When an audience is faced with such TRUTH!!!!!!

Here that applause???!!!!

That audience had heard from a Divinity only reached when you’ve passed through Hell!

What inspiration does it come from?

Infinite knowledge of the problems of addiction … and work, work, work … just agonizingly hard, excruciating work!

—–

That particular recording nightmare may have occurred because of … perhaps … one too many?!

Everyone in the studio – from Sondheim to the Conductor and many of the musicians – had heard Elaine AT HER BEST!

They and she were not going to settle for anything less.

The rewards are dripping from one of the most complete five minutes of music and theater I will have EVER seen in my 69 years — for I had seen Sondheim’s Company live and … well … my own, incomparably bitter and alcoholic mother was all over that stage.

Little did I know at that time I would surrender to the same addiction.

Elaine and I met on a Law and Order episode, during which she asked me, “Michael, what is the most erotic thing in the world?”

I quoted Kissinger and said, “Power?”

“No”, she said.

“Talent!”

In that respect, Elaine Stritch is still one of the most erotically dramatic stars I have or will ever have seen.

I don’t fall in love again when I view her Ladies Who Lunch performance.

I drop into awe!!

An aging theater GODDESS … “IN ONE” as they say … ALL BY HERSELF!!

It’s not just the naked power of her voice but the shamelessly nude honesty of its unforced and unpremeditated pianissimos … and its pauses … its bold and merciless silence.

And of course, the mesmerizing, hypnotic rhythms of Sondheim’s accompaniment, all underpinning the suspense over what Elaine Stritch’s Joanne can come up with next?!

It is, I think, Sondheim at his greatest and no one could serve that genius as unstintingly as Elaine Stritch did with Ladies Who Lunch.

Elaine and I are both from Detroit, Michigan … and, as Lily Tomlin once said, “I left Detroit when I found out where I was!”

Why?

Detroit, when Elaine and I lived in it, was just the biggest Hoosier-like small town in the world!

I’m 69 now and she’s 84 … and we haven’t seen each other for years.

But then again, I’ll never see Dennis Hopper … ever again!

Unless, of course, we’re actually allowed to meet on “the other side!”

Dennis and I worked together in a film called Reborn so this little tribute to him came too late.

God willing, Elaine, like hopefully Sidney Poitier as well, can sense my gratitude to God for having had the privilege to have worked with both of them and to have known them both as friends, if only for a short while.

As for Dennis Hopper, we both only had one brief scene together which went with unexpected simplicity and ease within only a few takes.

Other, much bigger stars have actually pushed the envelope of self-indulgence to vastly higher levels than Dennis did with me.

The only inconvenience he ever caused me was a late night impulse to hear his favorite rock musicians at about 3 a.m.

We were shooting Reborn in Galveston, Texas and the motel we were all housed in had paper-thin walls.

I and my wife Anne sat bolt upright in bed!

I finally got up amidst all the noise and went into the hall, knocked on Dennis’ door.

He opened it and immediately began his apologies, “Hey, man, I’m sorry, man … really sorry but I just had to hear my music, ya know? And when ya gotta hear yer music, ya know …. “

“Right, Dennis,” I said, “But could you turn it down, please … low enough so we can sleep?”

“Yeah, sure, man … sorry, no problem!”

Dennis was never a major problem for me during the brief time we worked together.

As for Elaine, the last time we spoke, she knew I’d begun drinking and she had finally overcome her own addiction and … well … I got the firm suggestions I deserved.

I didn’t really listen, of course.

Alcoholism is a dark tunnel only the addict would understand. Its initial welcome is heaven itself.

The exit from the tunnel, if there is one, is filled with the hell of many cold turkeys and pitch black despair about everything.

Only God, as far as I’m concerned, can get us out of it.

If you don’t believe in God?

You’ll die from the addiction to alcohol.

The saving grace, however, is that you learn how eternally blissful an addiction to God can be.

If you don’t believe me, check this out!

—–

I wasn’t on the show when he was on the show.  In fact, when they brought me back on the show I said I’m not coming back as long as that guy is on the show.  I didn’t think much of his acting or the character.

Never mind the fact that a simple IMDB search shows that Balcer and Sen. Thompson share credit on a handful of “Law and Order” episodes, facts like this get in the way of a good, bitchy attack like that.

Sen. Thompson, for his part, has always maintained a level of discretion whenever discussing any behind-the-scenes conflicts with the notoriously left-leaning creative staff.  He has never referred to any individuals by name and only that “one writer in particular” was always butting heads with him over storylines and bias injected into the show.  But, now that Balcer has shown himself to be so classless and obnoxious, Thompson confirmed with me that indeed, Balcer was the writer.

“He was the guy who I busted on several different occasions and made him change his script” he told me during our one-on-one interview this week in Los Angeles.  “So, I think it’s fair to say he’s not very happy.”

When discussing his time at “Law and Order,” he told me that he had an understanding with the show’s creator, Dick Wolf, that “as long as we had an exchange of ideas and it wasn’t skewed to the other side, is all I wanted.  To have an opportunity to make some conservative points along with the ever-present liberal points.  And I think for the most part we balanced it.”  Thompson was quick to assert that Wolf lived up to his word.

When the subject turned to the last few seasons of the show and its decidedly leftward slant, Thompson got quite animated and passionate.  “I do think it has changed somewhat since I left.  I noticed a year or so ago, there was one episode about a lawyer who signed off on the so-called torture memos and Cheney and all that.  And it was really, really rough and skewed.  I didn’t think I saw anything like that when I was there.”

When he did come across skewed storylines, he made his opinion known to the writers and producers.  Balcer, he says, “was fixated on Iraq and it was all about oil or it was a premeditated deal.”  In one script, “Somebody came back to New York from Iraq and because of what ‘Blackwater’ did to him he lost his head and killed somebody and that was his defense.  And it was treated as a plausible defense.  But in most cases, we were able to make it better in my estimation and it was one of the things I tried to insist on.”

Rough and tumble ideological debates in Hollywood are not the kind of stories you’ll find in Sen. Thompson’s new book, Teaching the Pig to Dance.   The memoir of his days in Tennessee is full of his recollections of the events of his youth that most formed his adult life and value system.  His devotion to his parents and his grandmother are evident as he tells how they helped him know when it was time to be a man and all the things a man is supposed to be.

The quirky and delightful porcine title does not have anything to do with a new spin-off of “Dancing With the Stars” and “The Biggest Loser.”  Thompson says that it is an allusion to an old saying from his youth.  “When you’re engaged In a totally fruitless activity, it’s like teaching a pig to dance.  It’s a waste of your time and it irritates the pig.”  And with a twinkle he adds “Either that, or the pork on Capitol Hill.”

Thompson, looking fit and more slender than when he ran for the Republican Nomination for President in 2008, chomped on an unlit cigar and easily let his Tennessee drawl flow through his deep bass voice.  It’s the voice that gained him a loyal following with his time on the Paul Harvey radio show and has carried him to his own nationally syndicated program, “The Fred Thompson Show.”

The book, the radio show, and a astounding three films in the can scheduled for release over the next six months keeps the peripatetic Senator busy and productive.  For a man whose career took him from country lawyer to Sen. Howard Baker’s counsel during the Watergate Hearings to Hollywood to the Senate to a run for the White House, this kind of pace is par for the course, and he seems to thrive on it.

Teaching the Democrats how NOT to over-spend and teaching the Obama Administration how NOT to offend our best international allies and teaching left-wing writers how NOT to enrage their audience may be tougher than Teaching the Pig to Dance.  But it sure is fun to see Sen. Fred Thompson continue to try.

To hear the entire interview with Sen. Fred Thompson, click over to The Stage Right Show, at 9:00 PM PT this Friday, May 28, or anytime thereafter.

Glenn Close stars as Patty Hewes, a high-powered trial lawyer who takes on big corporations for massive damages. For the first couple seasons you couldn’t tell if she was a villain or a hero. Patty’s a legal shark and a world class poker player without the cards. Her manipulations and schemes are Machiavellian to the extreme, which is why Patty is at the top of her game.

In season one she hires Ellen Parsons (Rose Byrne), a young attorney out to make a name for herself by working with a top law firm. Her relationship with Patty is reminiscent at first of the John Grisham classic The Firm. What seems like a plum job soon becomes dangerous and you can’t tell if Patty’s out to murder her or it’s one of the defendants they’re trying to bring down.

Patty’s loyal lieutenant is Tom Shayes (Tate Donovan). Shayes gets things done for Patty but even he finds tackling the biggest game in town can put your life at risk.

Here’s the intro to season 3:

Patty Hewes is back in action, tackling the most challenging case of her illustrious career. Following up Patty’s decisive victory over corrupt CEO Arthur Frobisher (Ted Danson) in Season 1 and her decimation of Ultima National Resources in Season 2, Patty Hewes has recently been appointed by the U.S. government to recover billions of dollars in stolen assets from the largest investment fraud in U.S. history, a fraud perpetrated by the esteemed financier Louis Tobin.

Inspired by recent events in the world’s economic collapse, Season 3 showcases Damages signature legal-thriller storytelling as Patty Hewes takes on the Tobin family – a secretive clan determined to protect its interests at all costs

Patty is determined to bring Tobin to justice and find the money, but he commits suicide and now the question is, does his son know his father’s secrets. Campbell Scott plays Joe Tobin, who starts out hating his dad and wants to clear his own name by helping Patty. But his dad leaves him a packet of information that makes him change his tune. Martin Short plays the family attorney who may have criminal secrets of his own. Lily Tomlin plays the Tobin widow.

—–

When I saw two comedy actors were going to be in this season I wondered how they would do in such a serious show. I can tell you they’re doing great. Martin Short plays a very devious, shady character without a trace of his usual exuberance. He’s very low key and on the money. Tomlin is very believable and we’re left wondering what secrets she’s hiding herself.

One of the key aspects to this show is that it’s like a Russian Matryoshka doll with one secret nested inside another. You uncover a secret only to find another, and another inside. You wonder what will be in the center of it all. Each one is surprising. And the closer you get to the center of it all, the more intense the tension.

Damages also uses New York better than any other show I can think of. In fact, it takes Law and Order to school and shows them how it’s done.

The acting on Damages is stellar. It’s also a great show for women as it lacks the rote, typical female storylines and has smart, clever characters.

I missed the first season when it debuted and friends kept telling me how good it was, so about half way through season 2 I rented the first season and was so hooked I searched online for all the season 2 episodes I missed so I could get caught up. I burned through One and 1/2 seasons episodes in a week. It’s that addicting.

Damages airs Monday nights on FX. It’s well worth your time.

As some say, there are times when acting beats working for a living.

In company like that, filming in the foothills of Alberta and staying at one of the best hotels in Canada, Calgary’s Palliser, it could only have gotten better if I’d been on my honeymoon.

In spite of the fact that I had the extreme pleasure of having a bedroom scene with Farrah Fawcett as my wife in the film, Ms. Fawcett’s character in Children of the Dust, though a bit “round the bend” … like some North American, pioneer Ophelia … had the profoundly healthy instinct of falling in love with Sidney Poitier.

Who could blame anybody for falling in love with Sidney Poitier?!

At that time in my life, however, I was not in love but seriously in trouble with a lot of things, mainly New York City itself … and I was seriously considering my eventual move to Canada.

I had already left the television series, Law and Order, largely because of my high profile battle with the Attorney General of the very Progressive Clinton Administration, Janet Reno. That row over Constitutionality was beyond politically incorrect and had become very common knowledge in Manhattan.

As the late sports writer, Dick Schaap asked of me, “Is there anyone in Manhattan that you haven’t offended?”

They hadn’t thought of a Glenn Beck Award in those days, so I had no refuge to possibly look forward to.

Mr. Beck’s present boss, Roger Ailes, flew to the rescue for a vaguely memorable moment with talk television, but by then Janet Reno and a family history of alcoholism had driven me into every bar from New York to Halifax.

President Clinton’s popularity ratings , however, were holding fairly strong, despite Janet Reno’s unconscionable attack upon the Koresh Compound, leaving 80 men, women and children dead.

The reasons for my departure from Law and Order seemed to have been Sidney’s main interest during our conversations on set. He was fascinated with the decision and didn’t so much argue with me about it, but ask very insightful and revealing questions, rather like he did in what is now my favorite Poitier performance, that of Mark Thackray in To Sir With Love.

“To Sir, With Love”

Early the next year, after Sidney and his family had moved to New York, he chose me to hand him his Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Board of Review.

Well, by then I had become persona non grata to the elite of Manhattan; and for Sidney to pick me that year as a presenter was a bold decision. His imprimatur was so important that even Stanley Crouch of the Far, Far Left Village Voice asked to have a copy of my words honoring Sidney and later even shared a burger and a beer with me.

Beginning my tribute was the very honest opinion about how drab and homely I felt standing or sitting next to Sidney Poitier.

I said something like, “Only Cary Grant could stand the challenge!”

Actually, after further thought, a cross between Cary Grant and Ronald Coleman might begin to do justice to Sidney Poitier’s handsomeness and his extraordinarily precise yet gentle eloquence.

However, after even further thought … and a recent, second viewing of To Sir, With Love … I doubt if most of 20th Century British Royalty could hold a candle to Sidney Poitier’s nobility.

“And nobility,” as the greatest English-speaking director of the theater, Sir Tyrone Guthrie once said, “is the rarest thing to find in an actor.”

Jose Ferrer had it. As Cyrano de Bergerac and Toulouse Lautrec, Ferrer bristled with the very obsession with detail that, I must say, is the mark of genius in any man.

However, if you couple that genius with the almost spiritual stillness of Sidney Poitier, a quiet which not only holds this audience of one in thrall but keeps the street-prowling thugs of Poitier’s supporting cast oozing with growing fear and awe … well, that’s not just acting at its best, it’s manhood at its highest level.

 ”In the Heat of the Night”

My own brief tribute to him at that award ceremony concentrated on one line-reading.

“They call me Mister Tibbs!”

The sounds of that line hissed at Rod Steiger like the warnings of a boa constrictor or python!

Rerun Ferrer’s Cyrano and you’ll hear a bravura display of such brilliance.

Poitier’s Mark Thackray, however, stuns us with his stillness, out of which he could move in any direction, at any time and with any speed required.

Dr. Guthrie, as we at the Guthrie theater admiringly called him, spoke of the most exciting moment in theater: “It’s not what does happen, but what might happen!”

Out of Poitier’s stillness, anything might happen.

Only Marlon Brando on screen and Laurence Olivier on stage had such potential danger to the extent that Poitier’s performances contain it.

In a long master shot within To Sir, With Love, Poitier’s character approaches a particularly dangerous thug in the room and does so … very slowly … while harnessing a bottomless supply of potential rage and violence that one is glad the door opens to interrupt the potential massacre.

That was in a long shot! Poitier, like Olivier, could hurl his persona up into the balcony of the Brooks Atkinson Theater!!

Either in my award speech or at a later date I said this about Sidney Poitier:

“You see a face that you’ve grown up with and admired, someone who was an icon of America, a symbol of strength and persistence and grace. And then you find out that in the everyday, workaday world of doing movies, he is everything he symbolizes on screen.”

Now, after seeing To Sir, With Love again, I kick myself for not urging Sidney to do a Ronald Reagan …

“Run for the Presidency, Sidney!”

It’s too late now. He’d be running for a political party I stopped supporting just before I met him.

Our “Sir” of To Sir, With Love, Sidney Poitier, is at the very top of American Royalty.

Its epitome actually!

Thank God his mother accidentally gave birth to him … indisputably … in the United States.

If she hadn’t, we might have been deprived of his unsurpassable nobility on screen and hours of instruction on how American Royalty should behave.

Such a time of profoundly important Judeo-Christian sacredness, with our pride in its significance increasingly muzzled by “Progressively political correctness”, should and, I believe, will be honored more deeply because of the inferential shame our New World Order leadership would like to immerse it in.

Apparently, and for the entire history of America, its Judeo-Christian roots have been, in the eyes of Progressives, one of our nation’s incessant problems, and the main reason the United States has found it impossible to join the … uh … “community of nations”.

“Is this another diatribe, another imbecilic slap at the United Nations, Mr. Moriarty?!”

Yes … among other shots at the Progressive certainty over the apparently incontestable New World Order.

The Copenhagen Climate Summit and the American mainstream press make it sound like “It’s all wrapped up!”

Hmmm … not so fast!

I know that my old television series, Law and Order, with the invaluable help of that insidiously low key, Marxist agent provocateur named Rene Balcer, is a perfect example of the Obama Nation’s farewell to anything but “cultural equality” as an increasingly militant, Progressive demand. However, I think the likes of Dick Wolf, Barack Obama and George Soros are counting their chickens before they hatch.

The United States fought and won a World War with three tyrannies … simultaneously – Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Imperial Japan – a nightmare that actually dragged the nation out of its first Great Depression.

“Warmongers!!”

Right … now, however, the combined forces of Far left America, neo-Soviet Russia, Red China and a worldwide, Islamic Jihad – are threatening the entire Judeo-Christian civilization of not only all of Europe but the two American continents as well. The New World Order wants the Western Hemisphere wrapped up and delivered … with a Public Option Health Care Bill, by Christmas.

Delivered to George Soros and CC’d to President Obama before the New Year!

“George Soros?!”

Yes … this is a reminder of who still holds one of the purse strings within not only the Obama Nation’s Game Plan … but that of neo-Soviet Vladimir Putin as well.

“George Soros, eh?”

Yup.

If anyone is sitting on top of the Whole New World Order, it’s George Soros.

Hmmm, again!

“What’s that got to do with Christmas?”

Everything.

Not Soros, nor Obama nor the likes of Rene Balcer really want anything to do with celebrations that impede the speed of a fully Progressive, increasingly Marxist New World Order.

“What about Dick Wolf?”

He’s along for the ride. He is also what his Progressive friends think of as a “safe gambler”.

The Wolf’s riding the Rhone now, the Deep Red Horse of either a New World Order tyranny or apocalypse. The Progressive Wolf Pack surrounding him won’t let him off the ride … ever! If he jumps, they’ll eat him alive!

The 2009 Law and Order is nothing more than a shamelessly arrogant, propaganda arm for the Obama Nation and its profoundly seminal importance for the Progressive aim of dragging the United States of America into the New World Order … kicking and screaming, if need be.

Of course, leading all that “kicking and screaming” is the dauntless Glenn Beck!

Just days after I buttoned up my own enterstageright.com editorial, Senator Reid prepares us for our second civil war, after I ended it with threats of impeachment.

Glenn Beck was exposing the potentially “high crime” – the “misdemeanors” are already bleeding from the graft, blackmail and corruption within President Obama’s Czarified and, I believe, highly unconstitutional advisory staff – the impeachable offence of threatening our national security in order to bully a fellow Democrat into voting for the Complete Obama/Reid/Pelosi Health Care Bill.

Hmmmm, indeed!!

This isn’t Bill Clinton caught in a Tiger Woods dilemma!

This Chicago-style muscle which the Obama administration has been putting upon many Congressmen and Congresswomen, coupled with what I believe will be found  indisputably unconstitutional, the Cap and Trade Bill, these acts of reckless disregard for the Constitution are treading dangerously into impeachable offenses.

However, with a Democratic majority in both Houses of Congress?

Must we wait?

Or will the growing schism within the Democratic Party, that between the True Progressives and the Blue Dogs, widen to at least the width of the very Potomac River which our First President rode across to defeat taxation without representation.

With, as I say, the Obama Nation riding on the high horse of a Rhone Progressive Tyranny, the likes of Soros, Obama and, yes, my former producer, Dick Wolf, may very well ride off the “precipice” which President Obama spoke of so affirmatively the other day … but which will turn out to be the classic, old “precipice of disaster we all fear.

In this case, we needn’t fear it. The Law and Order of the Obama Nation, however, might end up falling off that cliff … all by itself!

In light of that possibility, I wish my readers the Happiest of New Years and the Merriest of Christmases!!

Dick Wolf

The last episode was “Fed.” It’s a story about an ACORN-like community organizing group called “Rights Alliance.” The founder of the Rights Alliance has a conservative infiltrator murdered to “cover up a cover-up.” The cover up is an affair the founder was having with one of its members. The “cover up of the cover-up” was the money being paid by the founder to his mistress’s husband to keep the affair quiet. The right-wing infiltrator was murdered because he had been secretly video taping a sting he was arranging unrelated to the affair–clearly meant to be reminiscent of the O’Keefe/Giles real life ACORN investigation. The founder feared this tape would open the organization up to scrutiny, thus exposing his affair and the subsequent monetary extortion to his girlfriend’s husband. We are not supposed to be shedding too many tears for our murder victim, given he was “tricking a few dumb kids in an ambush video.”

The victim was found with the words “Fed” printed on his chest, apparently to throw our eagle-eyed detective team of Bernard and Lupo off the scent. You see, “right wingers” hate government so much we murder government employees all the time. Of course, Rights Alliance is a non-profit group, not a Government agency, but the writers assume dopey murdering “right wingers” might think Rights Alliance are government agents. This makes scrawling the word “Fed” on the victim’s chest a great ruse. Get it?

But the real action is how “conservatives” are portrayed and characterized. As implied above, the show makes more sense as a parody of the left-wing view of the right than it is effective propaganda for the left. This is now its entertainment value. The first suspect for the infiltrator’s murder is a “Patriot Ranger,” a crazed group that is stated to be linked with “last summer’s Tea Party Movement.” The Patriot Rangers look like casting rejects from the movie “Deliverance.” They carry rifles in Manhattan, are unshaven, uncouth, and it looks like you could smell them from 50 feet. The suspect, who is innocent, is still made to appear repulsive. He calls the detectives “Obamabots,” which they reacted to with shock and anger.

Our erstwhile “O’Keefe” style infiltrator is said to be a “militant conservative.” What makes one a militant conservative? Our murder victim is “militant” because in college he ran a student group supporting George W. Bush’s reelection. His roommate from college tells the detective Lupo the O’Keefe character “hated liberals.”

Of course, Jack McCoy has to get in his two cents. He states how he has always been a supporter of Rights Alliance, which “has worked across party lines.” He proceeds to tell his DAs to “go the extra mile” before “blowing up” up the Rights Alliance group because of its historical good works like “predatory lending reform,” “housing reform,” and “minimum wage reform”–the heart of the left’s financial reform agenda. (The first two were instrumental in helping take down our financial system in 2008.)

In a “town hall” meeting held by McCoy for Patriot Rangers (read: Teabaggers) and Rights Alliance, both groups get unruly, but the worst epithets naturally emanate from the Rangers. One exclaims: “Socialist Scum!” McCoy is genuinely pained when the Rights Alliance group does not believe his plea for patience because he supported their work for years. He made no such assertion to the “Deliverance” styled Patriot Ranger/Tea Party crowd.

This episode also comes on the heels of an “SVU” show earlier in the week where some character refers to various Fox opinion show hosts and Rush Limbaugh as “cancers” in society.

There is a “Last Days of Pompeii” feel to Wolf’s “Law and Order” empire. He has become very wealthy delivering prime time crime drama to television, and the truth is his shows have been high quality. But it’s time to hang it up. These shows have become message delivery machines. When drama is subordinated to politics, it’s no longer popular art, but cheap propaganda.

Dick should get out while it’s only a little too late.

However, recent events have Law and Order just begging for my reassessment. I hardly expected my old television series to be the clown act that leads the American viewing audience into an increasingly predictable pile of hard left propaganda.

Why?

Dick Wolf

Dick Wolf is basically a follower of usually high-level talents such as Joe Stern, Robert Nathan and Ed Sherin.

Those men, I believe, are no longer regulars on Law and Order.

The guy who apparently wears the pants in that family is now Rene Balcer.

That’s clearly the hypnotist in whose deep pink trance Dick Wolf is irretrievably drowning.

Given the number of truly talented people that Wolf Productions has fired – versus the number of mediocre puppets and propagandists he’s hired – it should be no wonder that not just the Left but the French Left of a Rene Balcer should be running things.

However, with Le Balcer (pronounced Ball-Say … Say-Whaa?) now the head Ringmaster … and Dick Wolf in some kind of quasi-retirement … or early senility … the show has gone beyond hell. Such a plight is possible if, in the inferno, you cut a deal with the devil. Balcer, as even his own words might convince you of, has worn the Red credentials … minus the horns, of course … for most of his life. Only Lucifer could give him his opinions on terrorism.

Wolf, on the other hand, has, for his entire life, been merely a careerist, chasing the unsurpassable achievements of his mentor, Steven Bochco, and being obviously surpassed by numerously more brilliant TV producers. Such careerism would infer that even his own mother’s not safe if it means the record-breaking survival of a Dick Wolf production. Law and Order will soon outrace Gunsmoke to the category of longest-running television series.

Methuselah was the longest-running star of the Bible … but I hardly think his memory brings either a smile or a tear to anyone’s eye.

Recently Bill O’Reilly took profoundly justifiable umbrage – a good word, Mr. O’Reilly – at Law and Order’s lumping his name in with other talk-show hosts, describing them all as “a cancer spreading ignorance and hate … they have convinced folks that immigrants are the problem, not corporations that fail to pay a living wage or a broken health care system.”

Well!!

O’Reilly called those charges “simply defamatory and outrageous,” and labeled Wolf “a coward” and “a liar.”

Rene Balcer

As for Wolf’s cowardice, he buckled before the profoundly unconstitutional behavior of Attorney General Janet Reno and he and NBC lied about my having quit Law and Order.

Wolf and NBC announced that they fired me because of behavior that seems to have resembled Glenn Beck’s.

If only we had all been working for FOX!!

That I was fired is a lie.

I had quit Universal Television and NBC and the Law and Order series before they could even come up with an excuse for hiring Sam Waterston.  An advertisement I placed in both Variety and Hollywood Reporter announced my leaving the United States, which I did within a year.

If anyone can find those ads, I submit them as exhibit A in the proof of … how shall I say … Dick Wolf’s and NBC’s lack of, well, a certain talent for the truth.

It is all laid out in my memoir, The Gift of Stern Angels, now unfortunately out of print. No one was interested then.

By the way, The Gift of Stern Angels is quite a hurly-burly ride through the politics of network television, not to mention my own losing battle with alcohol.

Poor Law and Order has been drifting and now tumbling downhill into the ever-deepening waters of America-bashing. The blatant disgust for America’s hard-earned and hard-won sovereignty as a nation, credentials that certainly demand strict and unashamedly clear immigration laws … the Red Law and Order seems to be spitting on the very nation that defined a decent meaning to the words “law and order”.

As for Dick Wolf’s Empire and its future?

There might very well be numerous episodes on the 9/11 terrorists and their New York Trial.

I can now see the cops, ending the first half of the show, reading the Miranda rights to some grotesquely veiled excuse for Khalid Sheik Mohammed.

When KSM gets to trial?

No doubt, he and his defense lawyers… there’ll be more than one at the defense table … will get their day in court!!!!!

Dick Wolf’s point of view?

He might say, “Our shows on the trial of KSM will make its viewers at least as angry as the pre-trial demonstrations have shown!”

For Dick Wolf, such a stunningly  simplistic achievement is all he’s really been looking for his entire life: upsetting his audience.

He sure as hell upset Bill O’Reilly!

Our very own John Nolte has taken a close look at an L & O episode, Memos from the Darkside.

Please read his frank estimate of the Rene Balcer turn on the infamous Torture Memos. In addition, John’s article contains a long clip of Rene Balcer being interviewed by an Australian journalist [see below].

–

After describing his job as Executive Producer much like “herding cats … and anxious types”, Mr. Balcer refers to the war on terrorism as “so-called”, and claims that “cultural misunderstandings” lead to labeling innocent people as “terrorists”.

The “fallout of 9/11” is “pretty big business in America”.

It’s obviously earning Rene Balcer a living as terrorism’s apologist.

 “Americans of Middle Eastern descent … being held incommunicado and being abused by prison guards”, this, according to Balcer, was happening, under Bush of course, in Guantanamo, Iraq and Brooklyn!

However, according to Balcer, “you get in trouble (with a lot of people) if you attack President Bush by name …”

Hmmm … apparently talk show hosts like Bill O’Reilly are another matter.

Yet Balcer claims he shies away from “ad hominem” attacks.

Really?!

“Our best shows make the audience question what’s going on” … upstairs, right?

He admits to finding another show about the upstairs in Washington D.C., 24, “offensive”.

“24 supports torture!”

And therefore, Mr. Balcer, must Law and Order say that torture doesn’t save any American lives?

However, the most chilling points of view he expresses are his ideas about what makes a terrorist.

“Most people commit crimes … whether it be terrorists … or knocking over the local grocery store … they do it for intensely personal reasons.”

Hmmmm, indeed!!

A mere, ten minute glimpse into CNN’s documentary on the youthful terrorists in Mumbai and their horrifying phone conversations with their “Controllers” … whew … this would reveal no “intensely personal reasons” for mass murder but, indeed, a robotic, brainwashed and monomaniacal mindset instilled by their Jihadist instructors, the same mindset that filled the World War II kamikaze pilots of Japan.

Obviously Mr. Balcer has his own “personal problems” … and he’s “working them out” on Law and Order.

Finally, the Law and Order episode on ACORN?

President Obama’s very own Van Jones and Andy Stern might have written portions of it.

Yet Dick Wolf still wonders why producers like Steven Bochco and Jerry Bruckheimer always received better reviews, bigger ratings and vastly greater respect.

Dick, from the guy you used to describe as “the conscience of the show”, perhaps it’s because Bochco and Bruckheimer have had a conscience in the first place.

Where Law and Order has been treading is unconscionable.

dun DUN

Those early seasons aren’t as good as I remember, they’re better.  Not every episode’s a home run, the first dozen or so struggle in search of the tone and pace that will eventually define the series, but afterwards nothing but a few drop below a standing triple — easily better than 99% of movies produced this decade. 

Not to take anything away from the excellent work done by the rest of the cast, but the heart and soul of those first four seasons, what elevates the series into something truly unique and special, is Golden Globe and Emmy Award winner Michael Moriarty’s outstanding portrayal of Executive A.D.A. Ben Stone — a brilliant and fascinating character whose moral center anchors the show.

With his Charlie Brown face, slightly wrinkled off-the-rack suits and awkward 6’ – 4” frame, there’s nothing flashy or charismatic about Ben Stone … until he opens his mouth. Authority is immediately commanded thanks to a deep resonant voice, a sharp mind and a fortified set of principles based upon a respect for the law he knows so well and an unwavering dedication to truth.

Stone is a complicated character in the best sense of the word when it comes to fictional drama. Politics, liars and felons repulse him, but he still very much respects the role the defense attorney must play in order for our system to work. He probably couldn’t be one, but as arrogant as most of them are (the insufferable defense counsel is a L&O staple), Stone understands that they have a duty to exploit and game every advantage. He also relishes defeating them and while doing so uses the word “sir” like Ali used his jab.   

There might be a photograph of Robert Kennedy hanging prominently in his office, but what makes Stone such a principled and memorable character is that when it comes to his work, he’s completely apolitical. Justice is his only agenda. Throughout the series hints are dropped as to Stone’s personal political beliefs. For instance, we learn that he’s a Roman Catholic opposed to both the death penalty and abortion, and that after they defended the Nazis in Skokie, Stone ended his association with the ACLU. You get a sense he’s a liberal in the best sense of that word (Civil Rights, equal application of the law…), but he’s no Leftist.

I didn’t always agree with everything Stone did, but I certainly respect and admire him, and as the series rolled into Moriarty’s fourth and final one (he left over a dispute involving then Attorney General Janet Reno), the writers knew the actor was leaving and subtly laid the pipe to make sense of Stone’s eventual resignation. This is when the character really came alive and the conflict between a deeply principled man working in a inherently political system built on deal-making came to a breaking point.

dun DUN

In “Sanctuary,” one of the best episodes of television you’ll ever see, Stone prosecutes a young black man caught on videotape beating a white man to death during a race riot. Leftist racial politics hit Stone from every possible angle — the media; the young man’s defense attorney, Shambala Green (played by the superb Lorraine Toussaint); his own boss, District Attorney Adam Schiff (the excellent Steven Hill); and a race-hustling Reverend Ott who threatens to burn-baby-burn if there’s no acquittal. Stone, however, will have none of it and presses on with only justice on his mind. Fearing the racist Reverend, Schiff wants to deal and compromise. Stone’s response epitomizes a moral clarity we may never see on network television again:  “So you’re guilty until a percentage of the population threatens violence?”

With her client caught dead to rights, Green pulls every race card in the book and eventually settles on an absurd diminished capacity defense. She finds an “expert” to testify that her client isn’t legally responsible for his actions due to a psychological disorder triggered by mob violence called “group contagion.”

Stone destroys this “expert” with a single question: “So I assume you’d have to have the same feeling about a crowd of good ole’ boys … a tree, a noose, and a dead black man in Mississippi.”

The real showdown, however, occurs between Stone and Green after hours in a diner:

Green
Between you and me, Ben, as a black woman I’m ashamed of what happened on that street.

Stone
Are you? You have a helluva way of showing it.

Green
You don’t get it do you? I don’t want that to happen again.

Stone
No, you don’t get it. By infantilizing your own people, you are guaranteeing it will happen again.

Green
After all these years, you really had me fooled. I had no idea your sort of liberalism only came out of the closet when it was fashionable.

Stone
Shambala, just once I want someone to stand up in this country and say ‘I did it. I’m responsible for my actions. Not my television set and not the color of my skin…’ And if it makes you feel good to call me a racist, fine. But if you’re really looking for who’s responsible for racism these days…  Take a good look in the mirror.

Eventually, the trial ends with a hung jury. Wanting to end the racial tension, Schiff refuses to retry – resulting in this exchange:

Stone
What do you want? Peace without justice?

Schiff
I’m willing to straddle the fence so the city can heal. Can you understand that?

Stone
Yeah, I understand that. And that cure is worse than the disease. And it’s a solution that I just can’t be part of.

The beautiful thing about Ben Stone is that if this debate had been over a wealthy, politically connected white man he would have reacted in the exact same way. In a swirl of leftist madness, he’s the only one who’s colorblind – the only one who’s not a racist.

dun DUN

Three episodes later, after twenty years in the District Attorney’s office, Stone resigns in this touching and beautifully acted scene:

– 

dun DUN

Sam Waterston is a damn good actor and at the time I thought a fine replacement for Moriarty, but there’s no getting around the fact that the transition from Ben Stone to Jack McCoy is a jarring one. McCoy isn’t so much a character as he is a collection of stuff he does: he drinks too much, sleeps with his assistants, rides a motorcycle and likes to win in court. He’s all swagger and no depth, and it would take only five episodes to understand just how much was lost with Moriarty’s departure.

“White Rabbit,” is about the prosecution of a fugitive Vietnam War protester who’s been in hiding for twenty-plus years after being involved in a 1971 robbery that resulted in the shooting death of a police officer. Foreshadowing the crazy left turn the show would take under producer Rene Balcer and never recover from, McCoy wants to give this woman a break, “because it was the sixties.” Even after the policeman’s widow pleads to McCoy for justice, in the next scene his sympathy remains: “The whole country was at war. The President and Attorney General were breaking the law. Young people thought they were a force in history.”

I remember that moment when the episode first aired. It was like getting the news that an old friend had died. That things would never be the same was obvious. And with that, a classic television show turned into just another one-hour network drama.

“White Rabbit” aired on 10/19/94.  

Moriarty’s tenure on “Law & Order” represents, in my opinion, four of the finest seasons of television ever produced, ranking right alongside “The Sopranos.” Other than some references to the Clinton administration, the show hasn’t aged a day…

Magnificent acting and principled themes are timeless.

***

For those of you who don’t know, Michael Moriarty’s politics are very close to his “Law & Order” character. He’s a strong opponent of abortion and in 2008 endorsed fellow “Law & Order” actor Fred Thompson for President.

While doing some research for this piece, I came across an op-ed he wrote just a few months ago.

Enjoy:

If we pull back the veil from the Progressive Movement, we are obliged to see its totalitarian aims.

The Progressives and their hidden, long-term eugenics strategies, begun by the Supreme Court’s revolting opinions in the Buck v Bell and Roe v Wade decisions, are the ultimate products of a turn of the century Liberalism that became infected with the Victorian Francis Galton’s dream of a Super Human Race. Fin-de-siècle Vienna and that city’s broiling intellectual and artistic explosions captured much of this growing nightmare.

Vienna’s cross-breeding of Liberalism with racial supremacy theories, matched by Wall Street’s clandestine admiration for Marx’s totalitarian grip upon the “intelligentsia” … out of this a wealthy and American Radical Chic created the euphemism of “Progressive”.

Hitler’s horrific inhumanity in 1940’s Europe forced the intellectual supremacists, or “enlightened despots” as Voltaire would have labeled them had he been alive at the time, to go underground. To call themselves Liberal was safe … but it was only half the story.

America’s elbow-rubbing with supremacists of any kind created its own secret elite … and that “Radical Chic” is now “Progressive”.

You can read the full article here.

In the opening scene, a woman with 4 children is driving the wrong way down the West Side Highway (like the Diane Schuler Taconic Parkway horror this summer). Speaking on her cell phone erratically (no “hands free!”), the kids get concerned. She decides it is time to use nasal spray for her allergies, which had been spiked without her knowledge. Flash forward and viewers see two mangled vehicles resulting in seven deaths. 

Detectives Barnard and Lupo scan the usual suspects; husband (nope, he seems too distraught), in-laws (no reason, plus their kids died), even the cancer stricken mother-in-law (too sincere). We discover the deceased woman and her boss (“Mad Men’s” Rich Sommer) have had secret late night meetings for weeks. They discovered their drug company has doctored marketing materials and bribed doctors to push a cancer medication which can extend terminal patients lives up to a few months, although most last at most a week. The medication is a $1000 a day. The episode makes it clear such life extending drugs exist for drug company profit only. 

Consumers are portrayed as morons and dupes. Doctor’s have magical (and evil) powers to persuade them to buy this drug against their own better judgment and economic interest. One middle aged son complains that his father lasted 30 days too long on the drug, thus wiping out his mother’s savings as she was forced to sell her house. Apparently the writers did not think it important to explore why the father and mother were willing to do this. But they were quite sure they should not have. Who needs death panels with kids like that? 

Insurance companies are also evil. Even though they stopped paying for a drug which the writers make clear should not exist, they still come in for criticism for discontinuing payments. In utter frustration, Jack McCoy blurts out, “This is why we need health care reform.” Why is that Jack? The drug company used misleading advertising and made bribes. Don’t we already have laws against that? Or do we need to force people not to take life-extending drugs? What does health-care reform have to do with any of this? When shows just follow talking points it is hard to stay coherent. 

Ultimately, we learn the deceased drunk mother, Brenda Sawyer, was working with the FDA to expose her company’s deceitful marketing representations and practices, including bribing doctors, about the life extending cancer drug, “Lextenda.” A “whistle-blower” law awards a large percent of the fine to those who come forward if their company is convicted. Sommer’s character, Zach Marshall was her boss. He was working with her under the impression they would be sharing the award. She informed him, as the official “whistle-blower,” she would giving the award to charity. Marshall realizes his big payday is gone and decides to murder her so he can collect the award. During an office party he spikes her soft drink with alcohol and her nasal spray with a drug which mixes poorly with alcohol. Marshall then discovers she’s picking up the children and calls 9-1-1, but too late. He thought killing her was fine (plus whoever she might hit) but had some qualms about children.

While it is not made clear how Marshall communicated with his company, McCoy knew he had information proving their deceitful practices and was effectively blackmailing them. They erased his computer files, and paid for his legal defense, apparently all legal. The Chairman of Woodmore Pharmaceutical (a contributor to McCoy, who righteously gives him back his money) is shown as clearly caring only about covering up the illegal and deceitful marketing practices. The plot line makes it clear the company was willing to defend Sommer, regardless of what he did –  including murder, to prevent the information from getting out. Sommer is convicted of murder. The exposure of Woodmore’s practices is not made explicit, but the viewer assumes they have been compromised.

And that is why we need health care reform.