POSTSCRIPT: The Anti-Defamation League is now calling “House of Cards” anti-Semitic, proving, yet again, that when it comes to the lobby YOU CAN’T MAKE THESE THINGS UP!
My original post from Sunday, updated:
You have to check out this new series.
It is big. It stars Kevin Spacey who also directed it. Additionally, it is the first film produced by Netflix, which is itself a huge deal, and is available instantly at its site for free streaming.
Here is the amazing part. I don’t think I’m revealing any spoilers because this is only a small part of the plot but, if you are sensitive about such things, stop reading.
So…Kevin Spacey plays the Democratic whip of the House of Representatives. A new president has just been elected, who has promised to appoint Spacey’s character Secretary of State. However, he reneges and gives the job to someone else. The guy who gets the job is fine, even from Spacey’s viewpoint, but Spacey is mad and has to block him to hurt the president.
But the guy is clean. What to do?
Spacey’s staffer comes up with a Williams College editorial on Israel, published when the Secretary of State nominee was editor-in-chief of the college paper. The editorial calls the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza illegal.
Spacey figures that should be enough to destroy the would-be secretary’s chances EXCEPT it turns out that he did not write the editorial, another student did. Spacey dispatches a corrupt, drug addicted Congressman (really) to visit the guy who wrote the article and convince him to say that it was, in fact, the Secretary of State nominee who was responsible.
The guy doesn’t want to do it. He says that, even as a student, the Secretary-designate was a total wuss who would never take any controversial stands.
So the doped up Congressman bribes him with pot and cocaine and, voila, he changes his mind. He will go public with the fact that it was the Secretary guy who opposed the occupation.
Spacey gives the story to the Washington Post and then the Secretary nominee is confronted by the real George Stephanopoulos on his Sunday show who nails him for having criticized Israel 30 years ago! The addled nominee laughs!
Spacey calls the head of the Anti-Defamation League (not played by the real Abe Foxman) to inform him that the Secretary-designate disrespected Israel while in college. The Foxman character rushes to CNN to announce that he will stop the anti-Semite from being confirmed. Spacey, watching the television, smiles, looks at the camera and says, “This is too easy.”
The nominee is forced to withdraw.
All the forces of corruption win!
Exaggerated? Nope, as the Hagel assault demonstrates. (Note Carl Levin’s decision to postpone the confirmation vote, no doubt trying to please the lobby as he contemplates running for another term).
This is how the lobby operates. This is how Congress operates.
Kevin Spacey, bless you.
Hey, lobby, lots of luck bringing Spacey or Netflix to their knees!
Spacey obviously didn’t do his research. When the Israel lobby engages in a smear campaign, it is usually because serious dollars are at stake. He could have done a movie on Morris Amitay’s use of missile secrets to quash a sale which almost drove an ally to the Soviets. He could have done a series on the heist of US trade secrets by AIPAC and the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the mid-1980s. http://www.irmep.org/ila/economy
The lobby is corrupt and breaks US laws for power and dollars, not as the tool of corrupt politicos.
Fiction, not fact.
I’m pro-Israel and love House of Cards. The sequence you mentioned was funny… especially when the congressmen scores coke and grass and gets high with the lunatic blogger. MJ I wish we had such a powerful ‘Lobby’ back in the early 40′s if you catch my drift.
Amazing that something penetrated the hermetically sealed cocoon that the Israeli Lobby has wrapped America in..
I’m downloading the film and really looking forward to it.
Good Morning Vietnam!
I really dont want to be that guy, and i love a lot of your work, but their are some errors in your piece. Its a 13 part TV show, not a film, and its directed (at least the first 2 episodes) by David Fincher. But your principle still stands, I just thought you should know