The 2005 Billy Bush tape was not enough to keep Donald Trump out of the White House, but the barrage of allegations against boorish celebrities has succeeded in the premature end of another fake presidency: that of Frank Underwood on Netflix's House of Cards.
In his public statement after Anthony Rapp accused him of sexually assaulting him at a 1986 cast party, Kevin Spacey claimed not to remember the incident. He blamed the alcohol, but it appears that the incident simply didn't stand out.
Spacey, if reports are to be believed, has been using Mr. Trump's motto above as a personal modus operandi toward fellow actors, bartenders, a reporter, a military set advisor, and any other attractive male in the 14-to-29-year-old age bracket who have caught his eye, even before he achieved stardom himself. At the same time, he steadfastly refused to come out publicly as gay until that revelation was overshadowed by his being outed as a creep and pedophile.
Indeed, that "when you're a star, you can do anything" motto held true for decades. Harry Dreyfuss alleges that in 2008, Spacey repeatedly groped him in front of his father, Richard Dreyfuss. Personally, I do not know anybody, gay or straight, who would grope an 18-year-old in front of his or her parents without suffering the loss of some teeth; but in this case, Spacey was the elder Dreyfuss's boss and an idol of the younger Dreyfuss, who at the time tried desperately to keep his father from noticing what was going on. (Spacey, through his publicist, denies the incident ever took place.)
It has proven a simple matter for Netflix to kick Frank Underwood out of the White House; how the imaginary U.S. fares under Claire Underwood's presidency makes little difference to us in the real world.* With Red America having overlooked Donald Trump's crass objectification of women last year, real U.S. is stuck with him for the next three seasons.
And nobody else down the line of succession appears to be much of any improvement.
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* I don't watch the show — I watched the BBC version years ago, and once through that wringer was enough — so I don't know how its First Lady overcame the constitutional barrier to being her husband's Vice President. But you can put your mind at ease that there is absolutely, positively, 100% guaranteed no way that Melania Trump will be President of the United States.
Isn't that right, Edith Wilson?
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