Tony Soprano=GWB?

Katherine Mangu-Ward | May 7, 2007

Carmela Soprano is caught reading Rebel-in-Chief, a chronicle of "the Bold and Controversial Presidency of George W. Bush" by The Weekly Standard's Fred Barnes. An entertaining close analysis of her choice of reading material from the Worldwide Standard:

First, we must remember this is Hollywood and Carmela’s reading Rebel-in-Chief is probably meant to reflect poorly on her and her sense of judgment. Carmela’s support for this highly unpopular president (remember, she voted for him) is the same as her standing by Tony Soprano. Both are equally repugnant and, of course, murderers of hundreds or thousands or hundreds of thousands of people. Some think Carmela should leave her loutish husband. While she’s at it, she ought to leave that loutish president. Her husband may be arrested any time. Her president may be arrested anytime as well, for war crimes. All in all, a bad sign....

It should also not surprise us that Carmela is a conservative. Remember in the second season when A.J. asks his mother “Why are we here?” Carmela’s response: “From Adam and Eve.” In the first episode of this season, when Bobby talks about putting up a wall between us and Mexico, Carm adds “Amen.” Not that Tony Soprano thinks any different. After all, he has now joined the war on terror by providing a cell phone number of a possible terrorist to the feds. This goes back to my first point, that Tony Soprano and Bush are the same, at least in the eyes of his wife, though in some respects Tony is more like Clinton.

But like I said, we shouldn’t read too much into this.

More on The Sopranos as a lens for peeking at politics here and here.