This Is (Almost) Too Sad To Poke Fun At

After we blogged about the demise of “Commander in Chief” yesterday, a tipster emailed us:

“Geena Davis will be at the National Press Club tomorrow (Thurs) along with Marie Wilson from the White House Project to discuss the cancellation of ‘Commander in Chief.’”

We were going to mention this to you, in case some of you might want to attend. But then, a few hours later, we learned:

The Geena Davis / White House Project event that was originally scheduled for tomorrow at the Natl. Press Club has been cancelled.

Poor Geena! What caused this “meta-cancellation”? Was George Clooney dropping by the NPC yet again?

Update: As it turns out, Davis wasn’t dissed — which shouldn’t be surprising, considering that even a TV actress with a cancelled show is still a bona fide celebrity (and everyone in this town has a hard-on for bona fide celebrities).

Apparently a scheduling conflict with Davis developed late yesterday. The White House Project will reschedule either the NPC luncheon or newsmaker event for sometime in June or July.

Davis Awarded As ABC Shelves ‘Commander’ [AP]
Earlier: Some Bad News for Hillary

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Some Bad News for Hillary

America may not be ready for a woman president in real life, if we can’t handle one on TV:

So it’s official: Despite plummeting ratings for both of them, President George W. Bush has outlasted President Mackenzie Allen.

C.I.C., R.I.P.

ABC Yanks ‘Commander in Chief’ [CNN]

Earlier: Decoding the Note: Did You Hear Their Shoutout On That New Heather Graham Sitcom?
The Time Is Still Not Right For America’s First Hot President

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Decoding the Note: Did You Hear Their Shoutout On That New Heather Graham Sitcom?

The Note, today:

“Commander in Chief” returns Thursday night at 10 pm ET on the ABC television network, as President Mackenzie Allen (Geena Davis) breaks with history and delivers her first State of the Union from an unlikely location. Perhaps overshadowing the President’s vision for the country is the mention of The Note by a young DNC intern in the first five minutes of the episode.

(And, no, we aren’t kidding. True Note fans, Googling monkeys, and Nielsen families, please tune in.)

The Note
Drudge Report

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The Time Is Still Not Right For America’s First Hot President

It’s been a bad year for fictional Presidents. Not that the real one hasn’t had his share of setbacks, but when his numbers plummet they don’t replace him with an improv comedian. The same cannot be said of Geena Davis, whose Commander in Chief is being put on hiatus. ABC claims the show will be back with new episodes, possibly with the title “President Girl!” Also, Davis will now solve murders weekly in her advanced crime lab with her gruff, no-nonsense Vice President and sassy black Attorney General.

There’s some sort of grand metaphor for something or other in the fact that the show about the first female President is being trounced by a show (American Idol) organized as a farcical parody of democracy, but we’re too busy not watching Commander in Chief to work it out.

Geena’s Commander in Chief Slips in Polls [People]
Term-limited ‘West Wing’ ending in style [Rocky Mountain News]

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Daily Briefing: ‘Tighten Our Belt’

• Bush contemplates expansion of federal role in natural disaster response. [WP]
• Over 80% of FEMA contracts for Katrina cleanup were no-bid or decided among limited competition. DHS inspector general: “When you do something like this, you do increase the vulnerability for fraud, plain waste, abuse and mismanagement. We are very apprehensive about what we are seeing.” [NYT]
• Louisiana asks for $40b from federal government. Mary Landrieu: “We’re going to fight hard for every dollar.” [WP, WSJ]
• Bush asks White House Budget Director Joshua Bolten to “tighten our belt.” Bolten: “The disaster response is a relatively short-term hit to the budget. If we’re sensible in our spending, both on the disaster response and on belt-tightening elsewhere, and we keep strong economic growth policies in place, I believe we can still meet the president’s target of reducing the deficit in half by 2009 and remain on track with a steadily declining deficit path, either reaching or heading very close to balance.” [WSJ]
• Roberts expected to pass Senate with 64 votes. [USAT]

READ MORE: Democrats, Republicans, SCOTUS, bill frist, budget, commander in chief, congress, dick cheney, fema, george w. bush, homeland security, john g. roberts, joshua bolten, karen hughes, katrina, louisiana, mary landrieu, mitt romney