Happy Presidents’ Day

Posted by Maggie February 20th, 2006 at 09:03pm In All Things TV

How did you celebrate your Presidents’ Day? I honored our forefathers by eating Oreos and watching TV. For your presidential reading pleasure, my list of the best presidential-themed television moments.

1. I must start this list with The West Wing, specifically the very first episode, when Sam sleeps with the hooker (who he doesn’t know is a hooker) and gets a page (a pager! that’s so quaint) that says POTUS. You know you’ve got a good show from that moment on. Though lately it’s become exhausting and disheartening to watch, in its glory days, there was nothing better. My freshman year of college I went to see the two-hour season premiere at the Kennedy School of Goverment with a couple hundred other people. That was a receptive audience, like watching Project Runway with fashion designers or The Bachelor with stupid whores.
2. President Palmer from 24. The man went through a lot. And then got shot in the neck. It’s tough being the President.
3. I refuse to include Geena Davis on this list. Has that show been canceled yet? This doesn’t count as putting Geena Davis on this list. I hate Geena Davis and I hate her stupid show.
4. That’s My Bush! on Comedy Central. This show was true genius, brought to us by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, and sadly only lasted a couple of episodes before getting the boot because of, you know, terrorism ‘n’ shit. This show didn’t so much mock the president as it did the sitcom form, brilliantly. One episode was all just a series of people getting stuck into small places together, forced to bond, or talk, or kiss, or do whatever people in sitcoms do when handcuffed together or stuck in the elevator or locked in the ATM vestibule.
5. Will Ferrell on SNL as Bush in the debates during the 2000 election, when he wraps up his campaign platform in one word: “Strategery.”
6. Bill Clinton playing the saxophone on MTV. I sort of remember that. He said briefs, right?
7. The Nixon/Kennedy debates… or so people tell me.

Bill Clinton on Arsenio Hall (did he even play the saxophone on MTV? now I’m not sure), the cast of That’s My Bush!, and sexy Sam Seaborn. I heart Rob Lowe.