'Commander In Chief' Creator: Idea of Palin Facing Down Russians Is 'Idiotic'

Rod Lurie, the liberal creator of the President-Hillary-imagining ABC TV series "Commander in Chief," thinks the Sarah Palin pick makes him look prescient. "I think Geena [Davis] and I need to be paid royalties by the Republicans." In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, he went on to slam Palin as unprepared:

Lurie was reached by phone as he was leaving the Democratic National Convention, en route to Toronto, where he will screen his new [Plamegate-cribbing] film "Nothing but the Truth." A Barack Obama supporter, Lurie criticized the real-life manifestation of his TV fiction.

"People who understand politics know anything is possible," he said. "Picking a woman is an absolute strategic idea from McCain's point of view. He's not talking about governing right now. The idea of this woman actually facing down [Vladimir] Putin and negotiating with [Dmitry] Medvedev is idiotic."

This wouldn't be the first time Lurie abandoned his female-President dreams, even if he still thinks Hillary is wildly qualified, unlike Palin. He wrote about his support for Obama on The Huffington Post in February:

Several years ago, I wrote and directed a film called The Contender in which Jeff Bridges played a president who nominates a female senator, played by Joan Allen, to be his vice president. In 2005, I created the TV series Commander-in-Chief in which Geena Davis played Mackenzie Allen, America's first female president. In both cases, the conservative press descended upon me like I was some sort of typhoid-riddled Beelzebub and, of the latter, I was accused of making nothing more than a commercial for Hillary Clinton.

I have to admit that all of us creatively involved with Commander absolutely intended to put the term "Madam President" into the zeitgeist. I can't deny it. Indeed, if Hillary somehow gets the nomination, I'll be out there waving a flag for her like I was in the cast of Les Miserables. I respect her, think her wildly qualified, and wise. But until that time, I'm rooting for Barack Obama.

Why Obama? Because we apparently need a black president worse than a female president. Take this sentence:

We are viewed by the world as a quasi-racist state in which we allow natural disasters to obliterate our minority community, in which our penal system is designed to treat blacks unfairly, and in which we let the medical and educational systems in our ghettos fester to the level of some third world countries.

It sounds like Lurie could make a thrilling movie lionizing Reverend Wright.