The fifth season of Showtime’s spy thriller Homeland premiered last Sunday night. Once President Obama’s favorite TV show, this episode is downright contemptuous of U.S. — read Obama’s — foreign policy as regards the Middle East and Syria in particular. For someone who refuses to utter the words “Radical Islam,” Homeland is highly unlikely to be Must See TV.
The scene that would have tipped Obama’s Palace Guard to suggest he join Michelle and the girls for an episode of Modern Family rather than watch the new Homeland involves the character Peter Quinn (Rupert Friend).
The hardened yet haunted CIA black-ops specialist is summoned before a conference table full of Intelligence brass to explain what he’s been up to in Syria the past two years. Quinn describes al-Raqqa province and U.S. airstrikes targeting Assad, ultimately aiming for al-Nusra and Islamic State… at which point, were he watching from his nice white house, the leader of the free world would probably feel the need to get up for a bowl of hot popcorn