Skip to footer

How accurate is 'House of Cards?' Very, says President Clinton.

Former president Bill Clinton is apparently a huge fan of Netflix's 'House of Cards,' starring Kevin Spacey. And it's not the acting that impresses the 42nd president, it's the accurate portrayal of the back-room political dealings that has Mr. Clinton watching.  

|
Netflix/AP
In this image released by Netflix, Kevin Spacey, left, and Michael Kelly appear in a scene from "House of Cards." Former president Bill Clinton is a huge fan of the political drama because he thinks its an accurate portrayal of political workings behind the scenes.

In the Netflix series "House of Cards" Frank Underwood is a ruthless, Machiavellian politician, bent on obtaining absolute power. 

Underwood, played by actor Kevin Spacey, takes no half measures as he jockeys for position in Washington, and his risky dealings have earned the respect of someone who happens to know a thing or two about working in government.

In an interview for Gotham Magazine, Spacey talked about playing poker with Bill Clinton while he was on the campaign trail in the 1990s, and he said the two of them are still good friends today.  

“He tells me, ‘I love that House of Cards,’” Spacey says in a pitch-perfect impression, which reminds you that the actor’s talent for mimicry is legendary.

However, there is one inaccuracy that the former president was quick to point out to Spacey. “Kevin, 99 percent of what you do on that show is real. The 1 percent you get wrong is you could never get an education bill passed that fast,” Spacey told Gotham, referring to a Season 1 plot point. 

Mr. Clinton is not the only Oval Office holder to embrace Underwood and his pragmatic approach to Washington's machinery, according to The Hill. President Obama said back in 2013 that he wished real-life Washington D.C. was as "ruthlessly efficient" as Underwood's.

An Emmy-winning program on the online TV service Netflix, House of Cards is a sometimes troubling exaggeration of a "broken" Washington rather than a realistic depiction of beltway policy-making. However, there are pieces of the show that are grounded in real D.C. dealings. The Atlantic's Alexis Coe cites a scene in which Underwood is caught on film, apparently admiring a passing female reporter, and its parallels to a 2009 photo of President Obama that was widely shared online. Coe also compared General David Petraeus's affair with his biographer to Underwood's affair with a reporter on the show. 

Legislation may be harder to come by in reality than on 'Cards' – the 113th Congress barley staved off becoming the least productive Congress in December by passing non-binding bills in a lame-duck session, according to the Washington Post. Underwood gets deals done with a whole lot of arm twisting, and remains steps ahead of his Washington peers.

Maybe that's why Clinton says Underwood could not get an education bill passed so quickly: In the real world, Washington is full of deft negotiators.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to How accurate is 'House of Cards?' Very, says President Clinton.
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Culture-Cafe/2015/0331/How-accurate-is-House-of-Cards-Very-says-President-Clinton
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe