Spreading Media--Not Democracy

While our government may not be meeting its quarterly goals of spreading democracy around the world, we are doing a helleva job spreading our media values to non-democracies, sometimes called totalitariats. And that just may be the way to enhance our real influence and power in the world.

Not too long ago, you may have seen Pakistan President-cum-Generalisimo, Pervez Musharraf doing our talk show circuit, hawking his book, doing banter with the likes of Jon Stewart. Slick, very slick. He clearly watches Oprah.

Now we have The VladMan, Russian President Vladimir Putin, doing an American version of a media-riffic political campaign. He's jailed his opponent in the upcoming event he calls an election, sometimes called a stacked deck. But this has not stopped The VladMan from launching one of our media-glitz campaigns designed to wow and woo a thumbs-up vote on his referendum of leadership. His rallies feature driving music, laser lights, giant screens with The VladMan looking cool in a jacket and - was that a turtle-neck? It's practically a Stones Concert. He's also doing sweater-wearing staged events, surrounded by fresh-faced folks, against a TV backdrop of raised campaign words repeated endlessly so they're always in the camera shot. Thank you, Roger Ailes.

So, scrap the spreading democracy campaign - it doesn't seem to be working anyway. But imposing our TV values around the Middle East, now we maybe on to something. In addition to spreading shows like Sex in the City throughout Mesopotamia, what about The Apprentice Taliban Edition where 'your fired' could literally be flames consuming the errant male-only contestant? Oh, and the breaks could be populated with gyrating, bust-busting Victori's Secret commercials. A few seasons of these kind of TV values and any non-democratized society would start to decay and wither. That's real American influence and power.