Thin Skins in Prince George's County Maryland

The Washington Post is reporting that some folks in Maryland are not too happy about how their humble county was portrayed on ABC's Commander-in-Chief (wasn't that show canceled?):

ABC's prime-time drama "Commander in Chief," starring Geena Davis as the president, ignited an explosion of anger in Prince George's County yesterday as community leaders denounced an episode as offensive and racist for portraying the county as crime-ridden and in need of a federal takeover.

In the episode that aired Thursday night, called "Ties That Bind," Davis's character, Mackenzie Allen, watches a segment on the local news about civil unrest in Prince George's during a protest over the high homicide rate and a lack of police protection. She then goes to the Prince George's city of Hyattsville and gets out of her car in front of a restaurant advertising sweet potato pie, pork chops and chitlins. (They left out the watermelon or they would have hit a racist grand slam- HC).

After listening to people talk about slain loved ones and a lack of police, Allen sends 40 U.S. marshals into the county to quell the crime.

Various local and federal officials got their tighty-whities in a knot over the offense to their beloved community (oops, "whities" was probably not the best term to use):

Peter A. Shapiro, a former County Council member who represented the Hyattsville area, said he was astounded as he watched the show.

"They took the largest, wealthiest black county and reduced it to a stereotype of a poor, dangerous black neighborhood," Shapiro said. "And the irony is the neighborhood isn't even a poor black neighborhood."

Shapiro lives in Hyattsville, a racially and ethnically diverse community of single-family homes, apartments, shopping centers, restaurants and a historic district with a small-town feel.

County Executive Jack B. Johnson (D) held a news conference yesterday with Hyattsville Mayor Bill Gardner, Rep. Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) and others to denounce the episode.

"When the president of the show gets out of a car and is in front of a restaurant that advertises chitlins and pork chops in today's America, what any right-thinking American knows is we are harking back to an age-old inability of this country to celebrate the leadership and achievement of African Americans and other diverse people in this country," said Johnson spokeswoman Sharon Taylor, quoting from Johnson's speech.

Hey, folks - lighten up! It's only TV. Shoot, if Republicans went off and held press conferences every time The West Wing took cheap shots at them, there would have been a perpetual press pool stationed at NBC.

Besides, you know Commander-in-Chief is pure fiction....it has a woman president.