Entertainment

You Should Have Watched 'Veep,' McCain

Late Tuesday, U.S. Senator John McCain was caught playing poker on his phone during a U.S. Senate Committee hearing on Foreign Relations, which happened to be about only the biggest news topic in the country right now: the use of force in Syria. McCain tried to laugh it off on Twitter, but Twitter struck back with a vengeance (see below), and all this could have been avoided if McCain just took the time to watch the how-not-to-be-a-politician manual that is HBO's hilarious Veep.

How could watching Julia Louis-Dreyfus fumble through the Vice Presidency like the comedic genius she is have stopped a U.S. Senator from getting caught potentially losing his tax-payer-provided salary to some guy on a computer in his basement in North Dakota while Secretary of State John Kerry and Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel testify on the situation in Syria? Well, he could have learned about just how bad that sort of thing looks to the public from V.P. Selina Meyer, whose mug was released in an official photo from the office of the president in the fourth episode of Veep's most recent season.

In the clip, she's caught texting in a meeting with the President while "a hostage gets his legs blown off." See a connection? (And I'm not talking about one to Texts from Hillary.)

So, do yourself a favor, McCain. Watch Veep once in a while, and if you can't, at the very least, try to get your proclivity for behaving like a bored 12-year-old in church under control.

The American people lose. You fail. RT @SenJohnMcCain Scandal! Caught playing iPhone game at 3+ hour Senate hearing - worst of all I lost!— Whitney Neal (@WhitneyNeal) September 4, 2013

Image: HBO