Of course you’ve voted already. Now comes the Election Night Coverage (ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, Telemundo, Univision, CNN, MSNBC, CSPAN, Fox News, 8 p.m.) — with many starting hours early, maybe even now. They’ve vowed not to call things early (even if candidates imperiously try), so there might just be a lot of white board, […]
Category Archives: Politics
Also Tonight: Revisiting Reconstruction
One of the most important, but least told aspects of American history, is that of the time that came immediately after the Civil War. Henry Louis Gates Jr.’s latest history project, “Reconstruction: America After the Civil War” (PBS, 9 p.m., check local listings) seeks to provide a better context for a time “when black people […]
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Fast Times at Georgetown Prep: The Soundtrack
As the FBI begins its one week investigation into high school allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, one question it likely won’t be looking into is the one that’s been nagging at me: When the music was turned up loud to mask the screams of the alleged sexual attack, what music was it exactly? It […]
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Nixon Introduces Jane Fonda Documentary
The lengthy documentary “Jane Fonda in Five Acts” (HBO, 8 p.m.) begins not with any men who define four of the five “acts” in which the film is divided. It starts with Richard Nixon on one of his tapes, just musing. “Jane Fonda,” he says on the tape from September, 1971. “What in the world […]
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A Quick End for ‘Roseanne’
“Roseanne” was never as political as all the writing about the show. It actually seemed to make sense that her old working class character, resurrected after 20 years, might be a Trump supporter in her old age. With the brilliant Laurie Metcalf as her political opposite it seemed to work in the show’s reboot premiere, […]
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When David Cassidy Met Donald Trump
The last time I talked to David Cassidy, the forever young teen idol who died this week at 67, we chatted a bit about the unlikely guy who would become President. At the time, Donald Trump was the Republican frontrunner in the primaries and known mostly to Cassidy as the guy who fired him on […]
Franken Cut From Letterman Salute
When it comes time, finally for the honoree at “The Mark Twain Awards: David Letterman” (PBS, 8 p.m., check local listings), to take the stage after 90 minutes of praise of entertainers and officials, the bearded former talk show host takes time to say: “I have great admiration for Al Franken. This really is quite […]
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Homework for a Nation: ‘The Vietnam War’
There is something undoubtedly daunting about “The Vietnam War” (PBS, 8 p.m., check local listings), the Ken Burns and Lynn Novick epic that begins the first of its 10 episodes tonight. The sheer weight and depth of 18 hours — presented night after night over two weeks — makes it seem burdensome as homework (There […]
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McCain and Kerry Agree on Vietnam
There will be scores of community talk-backs associated with the Ken Burns-Lynn Novick opus “The Vietnam War” that starts Sunday on PBS. Perhaps none will be as prestigious as the one this week at the Kennedy Center, that featured three Vietnam veterans that rose to heights in the government. There, Sen. John McCain, former Secretary of […]
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With Obama Goes the Anger Translator
The end of Barack Obama administration Friday also means the end of Luther, Obama’s Anger Translator. While the 44th President was cool and calm in the Oval Office, what he really was thinking was interpreted in the character created by Keenan Michael Key in “Key & Peele.” Key performed it most memorably with Obama himself […]
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