Mike Schur, co-creator and producer of beloved
(and recently departed) TV show Parks and Recreation,
told Hitflix that Sen. Rand Paul was set to appear in
an episode, :
Having landed both Bill Murray and Werner Herzog, were there
any dream guest stars you never managed to get?Mike Schur: Hillary Clinton, but that became impossible
once we jumped to 2017, because we would’ve had to have answered a
question that she probably wouldn’t have wanted us to even pose at
this point. We also wanted Rand Paul to be in the Washington
episode, and he agreed, but then bailed at the eleventh hour. I
think he thought we were making fun of him, or something, which we
were not, at all. We were in fact flattering him, by linking him to
Ron. I get the sense that maybe interpreting writing and humor is
not his strong suit.
Notable politicos who did appear on the show at various
points include First Lady Michelle Obama, Vice President Joe Biden,
and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. Paul’s inclusion
would have been appropriate, in some sense, given that breakout
character Ron Swanson was TV’s best-known libertarian. in an
interview with :
“[Swanson] has done more to persuade my (French) wife about
libertarianism than I have,” Matt Welch, editor in chief
of Reason, told The Daily Beast .
“Though in fairness we’ve only been married 17 years.”
Schur claimed that Paul’s cameo would have been written in a
positive light, a fact the senator did not grasp. Whether that’s
true or not, who knows.
I enjoyed Parks and Rec throughout its run, and Swanson
is indeed an entertaining and frequently fair stand-in for
real-life libertarians. Taken as a whole, however, I must agree
with . On Parks and Rec, the
private businesses are always greedy, unscrupulous promoters of
unhealthy foods and environmentally ruinous projects. Government
bureaucrats, on the other hand, are always justified in going to
whatever length necessary to achieve some vague public goal deemed
vital by unelected, petty local tyrant Leslie Knope.
Perhaps that’s why Paul decided to steer clear, whereas Michelle
Obama saw the show as an obvious vehicle for her .
Watch Reason TV’s “5 Best Libertarian TV Shows Ever” below.