Op-Ed: Co-creator of '24' is shopping Kennedy Miniseries

What little I found on the proposed Kennedy miniseries by the co-creator of “24,” Joel Surnow, started out saying the he’s a conservative politically, it spills over into “24” and speculation that it will be reflected in “The Kennedys.”

Jack Bauer, played by Kiefer Sutherland, is right-leaning? If you were his tailor and told me he dresses right, I’d take your word for it, but not that the television show “24” has a rightward bent. “24” leans right? That’s news to me. Having watched every episode from first minute of Bauer‘s harrowing days saving the U.S. from dastardly attacks by evil destroyers, I always thought the show leaned left. The first black president, two in fact, was depicted on “24” before we elected one. This season it spotlights a female president. Un-subliminal suggestions slipped in by subversive left-leaning writers? Or savvy writers and producers knowing where a majority of Americans’ political sentiments lie and what sells. Sure Jack doesn’t hesitate to ‘torture’ or shoot the bad guy in the knee to get him to talk, but like Dirty Harry Callahan he doesn’t do it for pleasure, but out of necessity because something dire is about to happen. Is that where they get the silly idea from that “24” leans right? Jack, unlike Dick Cheney, George Bush and their Constitution-busting cabal that tortured for the fun of it, doesn’t torture ’innocents’ for the hell of it; just the bad guys and we know they’re the ’bad guys,’ because those ’right-leaning’ writers told us they were…so we root for Jack to ’’git’’ the bad guys and save the world, just as we rooted for Dirty Harry and an entire genre of like characters. As far as Surnow allowing his right-leaning-ness be reflected in his proposed series on the Kennedy Dynasty, we’ll have to wait for it to air. But first he has to sell it. According to the Hollywood Reporter:

The Kennedy’s takes an inside look behind the secret doors of the White House, the soiled and crooked steps it took to get there. It also tells the historical stories that are associated with the Kennedy era -- the Bay of Pigs, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the civil rights struggle, mob connections -- each one told in the contest of personal Kennedy family dramas.

If anyone doesn’t know the history of the Kennedys by now, they’ve been living under a rock or are very young. Those who lived through the Kennedy years and all their triumphs, foibles and tragedies have well-formed opinions; those who might say, Kennedys who?, may or may not have all their impressions formulated from one miniseries. If their intelligent and the series gets their attention, they won’t take one producer’s word for it; will hit Google and study up on the Kennedys. The Kennedys have been painted with every brush from the harsh, glaringly hyper-critical, revealing all their faults, wheeling and dealings and peccadilloes to the finely air-brushed versions showing them in near-angelic, can-do-no-wrong light to everything in between. The bigger question is rather than Surnow depicting the Kennedy clan in the worst possible light, would anyone want to invest the money to give the miniseries a play? So far there haven’t been any takers.