Earlier this week, Rene Balcer, the Executive Producer of “Law and Order,” had some obnoxious and demeaning things to say about one of the show’s former stars, Sen. Fred Thompson:
I wasn’t on the show when he was on the show. In fact, when they brought me back on the show I said I’m not coming back as long as that guy is on the show. I didn’t think much of his acting or the character.
Never mind the fact that a simple IMDB search shows that Balcer and Sen. Thompson share credit on a handful of “Law and Order” episodes, facts like this get in the way of a good, bitchy attack like that.
Sen. Thompson, for his part, has always maintained a level of discretion whenever discussing any behind-the-scenes conflicts with the notoriously left-leaning creative staff. He has never referred to any individuals by name and only that “one writer in particular” was always butting heads with him over storylines and bias injected into the show. But, now that Balcer has shown himself to be so classless and obnoxious, Thompson confirmed with me that indeed, Balcer was the writer.
“He was the guy who I busted on several different occasions and made him change his script” he told me during our one-on-one interview this week in Los Angeles. “So, I think it’s fair to say he’s not very happy.”
When discussing his time at “Law and Order,” he told me that he had an understanding with the show’s creator, Dick Wolf, that “as long as we had an exchange of ideas and it wasn’t skewed to the other side, is all I wanted. To have an opportunity to make some conservative points along with the ever-present liberal points. And I think for the most part we balanced it.” Thompson was quick to assert that Wolf lived up to his word.
When the subject turned to the last few seasons of the show and its decidedly leftward slant, Thompson got quite animated and passionate. “I do think it has changed somewhat since I left. I noticed a year or so ago, there was one episode about a lawyer who signed off on the so-called torture memos and Cheney and all that. And it was really, really rough and skewed. I didn’t think I saw anything like that when I was there.”
When he did come across skewed storylines, he made his opinion known to the writers and producers. Balcer, he says, “was fixated on Iraq and it was all about oil or it was a premeditated deal.” In one script, “Somebody came back to New York from Iraq and because of what ‘Blackwater’ did to him he lost his head and killed somebody and that was his defense. And it was treated as a plausible defense. But in most cases, we were able to make it better in my estimation and it was one of the things I tried to insist on.”
Rough and tumble ideological debates in Hollywood are not the kind of stories you’ll find in Sen. Thompson’s new book, Teaching the Pig to Dance. The memoir of his days in Tennessee is full of his recollections of the events of his youth that most formed his adult life and value system. His devotion to his parents and his grandmother are evident as he tells how they helped him know when it was time to be a man and all the things a man is supposed to be.
The quirky and delightful porcine title does not have anything to do with a new spin-off of “Dancing With the Stars” and “The Biggest Loser.” Thompson says that it is an allusion to an old saying from his youth. “When you’re engaged In a totally fruitless activity, it’s like teaching a pig to dance. It’s a waste of your time and it irritates the pig.” And with a twinkle he adds “Either that, or the pork on Capitol Hill.”
Thompson, looking fit and more slender than when he ran for the Republican Nomination for President in 2008, chomped on an unlit cigar and easily let his Tennessee drawl flow through his deep bass voice. It’s the voice that gained him a loyal following with his time on the Paul Harvey radio show and has carried him to his own nationally syndicated program, “The Fred Thompson Show.”
The book, the radio show, and a astounding three films in the can scheduled for release over the next six months keeps the peripatetic Senator busy and productive. For a man whose career took him from country lawyer to Sen. Howard Baker’s counsel during the Watergate Hearings to Hollywood to the Senate to a run for the White House, this kind of pace is par for the course, and he seems to thrive on it.
Teaching the Democrats how NOT to over-spend and teaching the Obama Administration how NOT to offend our best international allies and teaching left-wing writers how NOT to enrage their audience may be tougher than Teaching the Pig to Dance. But it sure is fun to see Sen. Fred Thompson continue to try.
To hear the entire interview with Sen. Fred Thompson, click over to The Stage Right Show, at 9:00 PM PT this Friday, May 28, or anytime thereafter.
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