Where I'll Be...

…tomorrow evening at 2100 hrs (EST). Here’s a trailer (four minutes)…

I’ve seen a lot of preview activity for this show on C-SPAN this week and it looks like it’s gonna be very, very good. Bonus: Laura has a BIG part in the documentary, as you might could glean from the trailer above. The WaPo also published a favorable review of the program today. Excerpts:

C-SPAN's two-hour documentary on the White House, which airs tomorrow night, passes by with the stately drama of a roll-call vote on a bill to temporarily modify certain duty rates and make other technical amendments to whatever. Piano music tinkles in the background as the camera pans voluptuously over clocks, rugs, sofas and chairs. Martial tunes swell as the state rooms come into focus. Red carpets and dishware, hand-lettered place cards, chocolate goodies from the pastry chefs -- this is catnip for the political crowd.

Its strength, however, goes well beyond home furnishings and real estate porn. The focus is squarely on how administrations and social history have impacted the meaning and look of the house, from its first occupants -- John and Abigail Adams -- to its current inhabitants, George and Laura Bush, who appear in the film, and in interviews broadcast through the coming week.

Tomorrow's overview is, in many ways, a thumbnail history of the presidency. Abraham Lincoln's time there is credited for creating the White House's public mystique and drama, albeit a tragic one. Theodore Roosevelt swept out decades of dark Victoriana and made it a showplace for a newly confident and increasingly imperial nation. Franklin D. Roosevelt's physical handicap meant that the world had to come to him, so the house became an increasingly powerful center of civic gravity. The Kennedy administration, and first lady Jacqueline Kennedy in particular, helped establish the house not just as a working government building and a home but also as a carefully curated historical museum.

I wouldn’t want to hazard a guess at what the ratings will be. I’m guessing not too many people will tear themselves away from the frickin’ NFL to watch something like this. And that’s too bad. Ah… America.

(Forgive me my snark, Gentle Reader. But I’m far from not knowing what I do say…)