If anyone who subscribes to HBO has not watched their new series on Sunday night, The Newsroom yet, I'd recommend trying to catch up now, with their latest episode and who it upset just being one of the reasons: Sen. Mike Lee Takes Issue With HBO’s ‘The Newsroom’:
HBO’s new drama “The Newsroom” has been the target of critical derision since its premiere. Now a sitting senator is taking issue with the show.
Tea Party Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) called HBO co-president Richard Plepler on Monday, after “The Newsroom” mentioned Lee in its latest episode. Reporting on the rise of the Tea Party, the show’s anchor Will McAvoy, played by Jeff Daniels, said “the centerpiece of Lee’s stump speech is repealing the 14th amendment.” McAvoy called it an “applause line” that will win Lee his primary by double digits.
Lee’s office, according to The Salt Lake Tribune, says the senator supported “clarifying” the interpretation of the constitutional amendment, but didn’t support its repeal. And Lee’s opponent in 2010, Bob Bennett, failed to make it to the primary after the Utah Republican Convention.
The senator’s office told the paper that the network is free to criticize Lee, so long as it does so accurately. “Lee obviously understands he is a public official and open to criticism,” Lee spokesman Brian Phillips said, “but this particular mistake was especially egregious and deserved to be corrected.”
Phillips told TPM that Lee believes HBO “responded positively” to his issue with the episode, but declined to comment further.
As someone who is a political junkie and who watches the kind of shows they're parodying here, I've really enjoyed the new series. It's been a mix of what you hope might happen if some conservative commentator finally got fed up enough with the Republican Party that they've been a member of to start speaking out about it, combined with a lot of really interesting side stories with all of the characters involved surrounding that anchor, the people who work for him, his old girlfriend who returns to the scene as his new producer and the new found conflicts with the station owners now that he's decided he actually wants to report the news rather than playing it safe and worrying about ratings.
The time frame for the show is set a couple of years ago, with the fictional anchor responding to both the BP oil disaster in the Gulf along with Arizona first passing their anti-immigration law and the rise of these "tea party" Republicans and their pay masters, the Koch brothers.
And for anyone else who isn't sure yet if they'd like to take the time to watch the series if you do have HBO and haven't caught it yet, here's the opening scene from the first episode.
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