There Will Be a Woman President in 2008

Wait - don't run for a tall building or a chair and a rope. It's not what you think:

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) - The United States will have a female president next year—on the Fox TV series "24."

Tony Award-winning actress Cherry Jones will play President Allison Taylor when the show about the exploits of counterterrorism agent Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) returns in January for its seventh season, the network announced Sunday.

Jones' term will coincide with Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential bid, but Fox Entertainment Chairman Peter Liguori said fiction and real-world politics will not intersect.

"It's a dramatic decision. ... The president is a very important piece of '24," Liguori told The Associated Press. "We've had a broad array of presidents on the show; why not a female president?"

This could really be interesting. You may remember the ill-fated ABC show "Commander-in-Chief" in which Geena Davis played the president. The show was a stinker, so if the producers had planned to pave the way for Hillary, they weren't on the air long enough to do it.

Whether the producers of "24" plan on a political impact or not, there will be one. If the woman president is portrayed as confident, in command, and highly competent, it could help ease the fears some voters will have about a woman in the Oval Office. If she is played as indecisive, emotional, and insecure, it could have a corresponding negative effect on people's perception of what a Hillary Clinton White House might look like. And if the female president appears to be more concerned about the rights and "feelings" of the terrorists, goodbye Hillary. I'm hoping for number 2 or 3.