Coming to Fox: a reality series in which actual companies that are struggling to stay afloat in this lousy economy agree — presumably in exchange for money — to let their staffs decide which among them is going to get pink-slipped to save money.
To populate its new “Lord of the Flies”-esque series, “Someone’s Gotta Go,” Fox has lined up actual companies — smaller, Dunder Mifflin-esque-sized (15-20 employees) ones — having financial difficulties.
In each case, the company’s boss or owner will call all the employees together and tell them someone’s going to get laid off. But rather than the boss/owner making the decision, he or she will instead give the employees all the available information about one another — salaries, job evaluations, etc. — and let the employees decide who will get pink-slipped.
Fox — or at least its genius/madman head of reality-TV Mike Darnell, whom no one over there seems willing or able to reign in — thinks people will flock to this show. Because it is about — wait for it — wish fulfillment. Because we’ve all been there when someone — we’ll call them Mister A — once again cons their way out of getting shown the door at our place of employment, while poor old hard-working slob — Mister B — gets the old heave ho, and wished we were in charge so it hadn’t played out that way.
Even for reality TV, that’s pretty damn cruel. I hope there’s at least one company where all the employees just walk out when their boss springs this on them.
Next up, perhaps a reality series set on Death Row, where inmates vie to be the last one executed. Or maybe they’ll just option Bumfights.
Holder didn’t ask for Katyal’s best judgment as to whether the D.C. bill was constitutional. He instead asked merely whether his own position that the bill is constitutional was so beyond the pale, so beneath the low level of plausible lawyers’ arguments, so legally frivolous, that the Solicitor General’s office, under its traditional commitment to defend any federal law for which any reasonable defense can be offered, wouldn’t be able to defend it in court.
Oh yeah, that’s a much more inappropriate standard than “Would I fight tooth and nail to keep this legal judgment from ever seeing the light of day?”, which was still higher than the bar used by the Bush administration.
Edward Whelan, president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, served as principal deputy in OLC from 2001 to 2004. His portfolio did not include national security matters.
You know, I can’t remember the last time I ever saw one of those blurbs describing what the writer is not. I can only assume that it was an attempt to somehow preserve his credibility and make his argument look less laughable. Didn’t work.