The Insiders’ Insider

Reasons why I can’t stand K Street:
-Bragging in the second episode about the impact of James Carville-feeding Howard Dean his line in the first. (Not only do we make news, we shoot and edit the show as fast as the news cycle!)
-Being forced to imagine just what it might be like inside the Carville/Matalin marriage.
-Watching journalists like Joe Klein and Howard Kurtz giggle and smirk (respectively) through their cameos. (Yippee! I’m on TV and it’s not even Sunday morning!) (Incidentally, Klein described a Carville-like character in his pseudonymously published book Primary Colors as looking like he’d been conceived during the love scene in Deliverance. Meow!)
-Not being able to read the newspaper anymore without wondering what stories will make their way into the show next week. (Of course, Mary Matalin’s continued consulting with Dick Cheney will certainly limit or change the tone of coverage.)

Reasons why I enjoy K Street:
–Roger Guenveur Smith is an amazing actor and maybe this show will finally bring his one man show A Huey P. Newton story to a wider audience.
-The little Soderberghian touches like the phantom woman who keeps appearing to John Slattery (shades of Solaris?).
-The name of the imaginary lobbying/consulting firm is Bergstrom/Lowell, which is clearly a reference to muckraking former 60 Minutes producer (and occasional Times investigative pinch-hitter) Lowell Bergman, memorably portrayed by an over-the-top Al Pacino in The Insider.
-Knowing that George Clooney gets to be a politician without giving up his movie star lifestyle.