According to the New York Times (March 31, 2002), the television program "JAG" (I've never watched it) has become a mouthpiece for the Pentagon, lovingly rendering noble soldiers and officers wisely and bravely enacting foreign policy on behalf of an adoring citizenry.
Star David Elliot says, "we send our scripts to our liaison and they weigh in on it," he said, referring to Paul Strub, the Pentagon's liaison with the entertainment industry. Mr. Elliott said the show hesitated to anger its Pentagon contacts, "because they certainly lend a great deal of production value that we couldn't buy." That "production value" is government funded military installations and equipment that are used in the series.
"JAG" reflects the pro-military sensibility of Mr. Bellisario, 66, a former staff sergeant in the Marines. He said that he believed military tribunals, not an international court, were the best way to mete out justice to terrorists, and that he wanted to show that such tribunals would not be kangaroo courts.
"I want to show people that the tribunals are not what many people feared they would be, which is that they would be nothing more than a necktie party, that they would have no foundation in law, that this was a way of taking these people and killing them," Mr. Bellisario said. "I wanted to show that we still have a system of justice." Personally, though, he said he believed "they should all be taken out and blown up."
The JAG episode thrills viewers with a tribunal lynching party of a real Qaeda implicated in the WTC bombing. In real life, we haven't caught a single suspect yet. Not one. Most of them, apparently, escaped into Pakistan where General Musharraf (98% approval rating in the latest "poll") pretends to be trying to round them up, while testing nuclear missiles to use on India.
At $62 billion, the most expensive fruitless prosecution in history.
But what really concerns me is this. Bush is the Republican President, a member of the party that believes that welfare is a corrosive handout that increases lassitude and dependency, and that the government should stay out of business let the free enterprise system work it's magic unencumbered.
So why are they subsidizing Hollywood movies and television programs like JAG? It's a bailout. It's propaganda. It's a government handout. It's created dependencies and laziness and lassitude. Make those entertainment moguls get off their fat butts and build their own sets and special effects! Stop these massive government hand-outs and subsidies immediately, so that the taxpayer's money can be used for legitimate purposes. Like building more prisons.
