Hollywood meets 'K Street'

"K Street" - Hollywood's big-buzz shot at showing Washington politics "from the inside out" - debuted this week with a hand-rubbed shoeshine.

By the time lobbyist Francisco Duprey (not his real name, he's an actor) gets around to asking Washington power couple Mary Matalin and James Carville (real names, almost playing themselves) for a job at their fictitious political consulting firm, he has also recoiffed his hair, buffed his nails, and puzzled over whether the stripe in a new shirt makes the right statement.

Welcome to HBO's new riff on reality TV, where real D.C. players mix it up with actors, hand-held cameras, documentary footage, and the week's headlines to often puzzling effect.

Did Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, a key figure in K Street's first episode, really ask Mr. Carville, a top political consultant, to help him prep for last week's Democratic debate in Baltimore? That's what Carville, neo-actor, says on camera. Turns out, that's not true. "The show requested for him to make an appearance," says a spokesperson for the Dean campaign.

But that didn't stop Dean from using Carville's one-liner from the fake prep session in the real debate. (The line: If the percentage of black people in your state determined your stand on civil rights, "Trent Lott would be Martin Luther King.")

Questioned about this at a Monitor breakfast this week, Carville quipped sarcastically: "Everybody at this table should be aghast that somebody gave a line to a politician to use, [and] be totally aghast that they have speechwriters and debate prep." He adds: "It is [just] a stupid television show."

Is it just a stupid show? The judgment here is that "K Street" got at least part of it right - the looks, the styles. But there are doubts that even the small, unobtrusive cameras of "K Street" can capture the behind-the-scenes deal-making that fuels the capital's lobby industry. Who is going to strike a high-stakes political bargain in full view of a TV camera?

Yet the concept clearly intrigues. The first show attracted GOP Sens. Don Nickles of Oklahoma and Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania who played themselves. But it's not clear how many other real-life politicians or lobbyists will join them.

"Life imitates art," says another Washington insider, a GOP aide on Capitol Hill. "Politicians were probably flattered to be asked on the show. The only people Washington is impressed by are people from Hollywood and vice versa."

The doubts arise where show biz meets reality. One lobbyist who didn't get in front of a camera compares the process here to the Wizard of Oz, where real action is behind curtains.

In that light, it was hardly a surprise last week when filming was barred from the Capitol complex and Senate offices, as a matter of Senate policy.

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