I felt a tad silly yesterday, and the day before, waiting for a phone interview from The Hollywood Reporter, but I’m glad I hung around and waited for their call.   The story, which just started running yesterday at about 5:00 PM almost instantly mushroomed into other stories, and blogs, and lots of internet banter about the story’s hook: my own support, along with producer Jonathan Wilson’s, for the modern tea party.  The reaction, good and bad, was fun to watch.

I take that back.  The bad reactions were particularly fun to watch.  When you mention the words “tea party” to some people, they develop a facial tic and start yelling obscenities.

Now, keep in mind, the Hollywood Reporter actually received an advance review copy of the episode and the writer, Paul Bond, watched it — clear to the end. (He liked it, called it a “colonial soap opera,” but one that drew him in, and that’s fine with me.)

In less than an hour after he posted his story, however, the Huffington Post, without ever even watching the episode, or calling us for comment, began a bash-fest, encouraging its readers to see our effort as an “..idealized belief in the purity of early American life..”

Let me just say that I have never more enjoyed being the subject of borrowed reporting and incomplete research in my life.   The Huffington Post almost never gets it right, but they make up for it in other ways:  their need to be at the center of all discussion means they push a LOT of pixels across the internet, and if “Huffpo” mentions you,  you get noticed — in this case by a lot of very sympathetic viewers who just purchased the DVD.

Huffpo can’t sing, but at least the old girl does it very loudly.

Now, as to the modern tea party and Courage, New Hampshire, the reality is that no good show can every just carry the water for the political convictions of its makers.  If you’ve ever watched ABC’s Brothers and Sisters, or Glee, or if you remember Thirty-Something you know what I mean.  There are times when even a well written show appears to be laboring under the weight of the cause du jour.   Real people, (meaning real characters) don’t wake up every morning thinking, “how can I have a good fight with my sister that will get everyone thinking about green house gasses?”

If the citizens of Courage, New Hampshire were threshing wheat or shredding pumpkins and worrying out loud, every minute, about the Stamp Act, or if a farm wife looked over at her husband and said, “my dearest companion,  I am sensible of your purity and pray our children’s children may be sensible of it as well,” then the Huffington Post might have a point, but the first episode — get this — is about bastardy and bar fights.

Granted, the response to that drama is something you might see in an 18th century community composed entirely of Congregationalists, but that’s a thorny part of history Huffpo finds annoying:  there were so durn many Christians back then; they went to meeting too much; if we have to have an 18th century piece, make it one with Johnny Depp and guy-liner.

(This is just conjecture on my part, but if they can divine my motives without watching my show, I’ll return the favor.)