Jonah Goldberg posts two comments today in response to Tuesday’s season premiere of The Unit on CBS. I’ve been a big fan of the show for its last two seasons. It’s not great television and there is no real substance to it. But it is highly entertaining, and for two years it has been hands down the most pro-military show on prime-time television. The cast was routinely called upon to carry out assassinations of Muslim terrorists, and even staged a covert mission into Iran last season. But the season premier included what was obviously an extremely awkward moment for much of the show’s audience–myself included–when the wife of the unit’s CO remarks:
“America is controlled by 6 families and always has been, sometimes they inter-marry and sometimes they hire out to especially gifted people and on rare occasion allow in someone who shows exceptional potential.
The accusation is absurd, (I assume the Clinton and Bush families would be counted among them, who are the other four?), but I didn’t take it at face value. The woman who utters this is the most loathsome character on the show, bordering on mentally unstable, and the delusional charge only reinforces her status as the show’s baddie (she made another character take the fall for her DUI last season). But one of Jonah’s readers thinks there might be more to it:
One of the speakers that we booked last year was Eric Haney, author of Inside Delta Force and the director and creator of The Unit. I spent multiple hours with Command Sergeant Major Haney (drove him from Dulles to W&L and back) and quickly found out that he has an ax to grind with conservatives and the US government. While he gave many years of honorable service to the US Army, he is unapologetically left wing, believes the Iraq War absolutely heinous, and that Islam is not the problem. You would never know his political views from the first two seasons of The Unit which is why I was painfully surprised to learn of them upon bringing him to campus. That being said, I wasn’t surprised to watch this season’s premier of The Unit. It is truly unfortunate that the only veterans Hollywood seems to embrace are those that march to their political drumbeat. The statement by Colonel Ryan’s wife, quoted in your Corner post, accurately reflects the ideology that drives Command Sergeant Major Haney, an ideology that apparently is going to be at the forefront of this season’s storylines. Command Sergeant Major Haney’s service as an American soldier is nothing short of heroic and it saddens me to see such a hero blinded by the intellectual desert that is modern liberalism.
I’m still dubious that the show would run away from its audience like that. Last season closed with the unit on the run from the U.S. government, but again, I’d always assumed this would somehow be revealed as necessary sacrifice for the greater good. But if the show really is heading in another direction, I suspect its audience will as well.
