TELEFILM FESTIVAL 2006 - "Commander in chief", con Geena Davis alla Casa Bianca, al capolinea. L'America non è pronta per una Presidente donna? Il serial in anteprima al "Telefilm Festival"
La ABC licenzia il presidente degli Stati Uniti. Secondo Drudgereport la rete americana, che ha lanciato nel settembre scorso la serie televisiva "Commander in chief" con protagonista Geena Davis nel ruolo di prima presidente americana donna - interpretazione che le è valso il Golden Globe 2oo6 quale "miglior attrice" - dovrebbe interrompere il telefilm al termine della prima stagione. Il serial è nato sulla scia del successo di "West Wing - Tutti gli uomini del presidente", serie di grande successo oltreoceano. A differenza di "West Wing", però, "Comandante in capo" si concentra maggiormente sul lato umano della presidentessa. Il telefilm, che sarà proposto in anteprima al prossimo "Telefilm Festival" (dal 5 al 7 maggio all'Apollo spazioCinema di Milano) è partito con picchi di ascolto di oltre 17 milioni di telespettatori americani, per poi drasticamente scendere a 10, 4 milioni già nella seconda puntata. Il telefilm ha aperto anche scenari futuribili ma niente affatto irrealistici. Geena Davis, che fuori dal set è una fervente Democratica, interpreta un ruolo che in parte potrebbe sovrapporsi a quello di Hillary Clinton, senatrice di New York, e per molti analisti politici possibile candidato dei Democratici già alle presidenziali del 2008. Sull'altro fronte, benché lei lo abbia categoricamente escluso, Condoleeza Rice potrebbe essere un erede credibile per George W. Bush. Nel frattempo una ricerca effettuata dall'agenzia di ricerche americana "Nexis" ha rivelato che 918 articoli riguardanti il telefilm contenevano oltre al nome della protagonista "Geena Davis" anche il nome di "Hillary Clinton". L'America non è ancora pronta per un presidente donna? Nel dubbio, leggetevi un interessante resoconto di "Usa Today" sulla prossima candidatura di Hillary Clinton alla Casa Bianca:

"Can Hillary be elected commander in chief?
By Bill Nichols, USA TODAY
BUFFALO — Bill Herberger, an 80-year-old former American Legion commander, didn't vote for Hillary Rodham Clinton when she won a Senate seat in 2000. But when Clinton finished her pitch to save the Niagara Falls Air Reserve Station from closure before the federal base-closing commission last month, the Swormville, N.Y., man and hundreds of other veterans, reservists and military family members roared their approval. "I will tell you that I didn't support her, because I didn't think she'd be supportive on issues like this," Herberger says. "And I will tell you that I will vote for her next time. She's been absolutely marvelous." The United States has never had a female commander in chief. But while Clinton consistently brushes aside questions about whether she is eyeing a White House run in 2008, the pro-military views and tough talk on defense that have surprised Herberger and others might help the former first lady break one of America's enduring glass ceilings. Unlike men, women can't stage macho photo ops to underscore their toughness, says Marie Wilson, president of the White House Project, a non-partisan group devoted to promoting female candidates from both parties. "How does a woman handle questions about these kinds of issues other than through her words?" she says. "These are the kind of exchanges women have in order to balance out the perceptions that they're not tough enough." In a recent Capitol Hill interview, Clinton described her national security approach as trying to "look at all of these issues from the perspective of what it means for New York's security and America's security. ... I just try to do what I think is right." Critics say the notion of Clinton accusing the Bush administration of not being tough enough on issues ranging from the war in Iraq to North Korea's nuclear threat smacks of a political makeover aimed at burnishing her national security credentials for 2008. Unlike 21 of her Democratic colleagues at the time, Clinton supported going to war in Iraq and has rejected calls for a timetable to begin bringing U.S. troops home. She supported Condoleezza Rice's nomination as secretary of State — 12 Democrats voted no — and was one of six Democrats last year opposed to blocking deployment of an untested national missile defense system. "I think these are absolutely newfound views," says William Black, executive director of the anti-Clinton political action committee Stop Her Now. "This is someone coming from an administration that had open disdain for the military." Clinton dismisses such talk. The Sept. 11 attacks, she says, made her grateful to have a "seat at the table and express views about what we need to defend ourselves and defeat the terrorists. That's really my overriding concern. ... We have to have a decisive win." Few senators get the attention focused on a former first lady. But Clinton has been put under an even more powerful microscope since Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., was defeated by President Bush in November and polls began showing her as a front-runner in the 2008 presidential race. A May USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll found for the first time that a majority of Americans — 53% — said they are likely to vote for Clinton if she runs for president in 2008. Clinton routinely dismisses questions about 2008 and says she is focusing on her 2006 Senate re-election bid. "She doesn't know yet" whether she will run, her husband, former president Bill Clinton, said on CNN's Larry King Live last month. There is little in the senator's eight years as first lady, or her pre-White House days as a lawyer, from which to draw conclusions on her foreign policy or military views. Her foreign trips as first lady were ceremonial or devoted to children's and women's issues. She also visited U.S. installations around the world. Clinton spokesman Philippe Reines says one issue that has carried over from her White House years is a concern about quality-of-life issues — health care, housing, educational opportunities — for U.S. troops and their families. In the Senate, Clinton has a fairly consistent record of support for the military — often with some of her GOP colleagues — and moderate foreign policy views. Some examples:
• She is the first New York senator to sit on the Armed Services Committee, where she has focused on improving pay and benefits for troops, both active and reserve. New York has the fourth-largest number of servicemen and women deployed in Iraq. Clinton visited Iraq in February in a much-publicized trip with Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.
• She introduced legislation last week, along with Democratic Sens. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Jack Reed of Rhode Island, to boost the Army by 80,000 soldiers over the next four years.
• She has co-sponsored bills to improve military health benefits with GOP Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Jim Talent of Missouri. "I think that generally her work on the (Armed Services) committee has been very strong," Talent says.
• At an April Armed Services Committee hearing, Clinton won headlines after her persistent questioning led Vice Adm. Lowell Jacoby, chief of the Defense Intelligence Agency, to admit that North Korea may now be able to arm missiles with nuclear warheads.
"The North Koreans have the ability to arm a missile with a nuclear device that can reach the United States," she said. "Put simply, they couldn't do that when George Bush became president, and now they can."
• She was nominated by the Pentagon — with which her husband often had contentious relations, particularly on gays in the military — to serve on a blue-ribbon panel studying how to foster better cooperation among the military services.
Adm. Edmund Giambastiani, commander of U.S. Joint Forces Command, named Clinton to the "Transformation Advisory Group." Clinton returned the favor last month by introducing him at the Armed Services hearing on his nomination to be vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
• A recent study by National Journal showed Clinton's record on defense, foreign policy and economics in 2004 made her the 34th most liberal senator, a year after she ranked ninth in the annual survey.
Clinton says a combination of factors prompted her to make national security a key focus in the Senate: a long-standing interest in military and foreign policy issues, the fact that New York City was attacked on Sept. 11, and New York's "noble tradition of military service" and status as home for a number of defense contractors. "For all those reasons, it just made sense that this would be an area I'd spend time on," she says. Foreign policy analysts say her strategy also makes for good politics. "She's stepping out on foreign policy issues, and that's smart. That's a level of leadership that makes sense for her," says David Leavy, a spokesman for the National Security Council during the Clinton administration. Leavy says that if Clinton is considering a run for the presidency, she has to try to inoculate herself against the criticism Kerry received from Republicans. "It's critical," he says. "The Republicans did a terrific job of painting Kerry as unacceptable and weak. It wasn't fair and it wasn't right, but they really tore his face off." Newly found views? Some Republicans contend, however, that Clinton's views on national security and foreign policy are politically crafted, given the animosity that the military often felt toward her husband. "Her whole involvement in getting on the Armed Services Committee is a calculated political ploy to burnish up her national security and defense credentials," says Black, a Virginia-based political fundraising consultant who heads the anti-Clinton group. "She certainly didn't seem to care a whit about the military before." Some conservative columnists, such as Mona Charen, have also criticized Clinton for her more moderate comments on domestic issues. "She can sniff the wind with the best of them," Charen wrote in January. In speeches earlier this year, Clinton said abortion often represents a "sad, even tragic choice" and praised religion and prayer as central to her life. Some GOP analysts say that if Clinton runs for president, voters could have questions about her toughness because she didn't divorce her husband after he admitted having an affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky in 1998. "She's still going to have a problem in reconciling voters' pity for her plight as first lady with seeing her as a figure with heft on foreign policy and defense issues," GOP pollster Kellyanne Conway says. "That's the nagging underpinning that nobody likes to talk about, the 800-pound gorilla on her back." Comments such as Conway's make students of women in politics wonder what foreign policy and national security credentials voters will expect from the first female presidential nominee, whether it's Clinton or not. Former Colorado congresswoman Patricia Schroeder, who ran an exploratory Democratic presidential campaign in 1988 before opting out of the race, says the nation's experience in having two female secretaries of State has helped — but a glass ceiling still exists. "We've moved the bar," she says of the image of women as leaders in foreign policy in the wake of Madeleine Albright and now Rice serving as secretary of State. "But we still have a ways to go." Schroeder, who now heads the Association of American Publishers, says she still worries that women are not seen as equals in being able to direct the military. She noted that while Rice and Albright may have helped the image of women as foreign policy heavyweights, viewers seldom see retired female colonels and generals on television as commentators. "To me, it's always been fascinating when you look at our presidents," Schroeder says. "Some of them, like Eisenhower, Kennedy and the first President Bush, had military records, but most of them haven't. And no one really said a word about it. But with women, it's, 'Wow, they didn't serve.' "
Clinton says the USA has made tremendous progress in "getting beyond stereotypes and outdated ideas. And I hope we are focusing on individuals, what each has to contribute. For me, I try to do my job as best I can. And that's really who I am. ... Others can judge however they choose."