The most memorable fictional White House scandals from film & TV

Shonda Rimes’ pulpy ABC show “Scandal” is built upon a series of scandals at the White House. Kerry Washington popped on the show as the leader of a crisis management firm that does a lot of work for the White House. Also, she’s having an affair with the President of the United States. Olivia Pope both handles and causes scandals.

There are scandals within the action of “Dave,” but the central premise would cause the biggest scandal in American political history. A lookalike of the president secretly replaces the real president when said President has a stroke! Some random dude is acting as President of the United States and several members of the White House staff are in on it! They don’t tell the first lady about the switcheroo! “Dave” may be a breezy comedy, but the implications of the plot make the mind reel.

“What if the president did a crime?” is a thriller sub-genre. “Absolute Power,” starring the movie’s director, Clint Eastwood, is a bit nastier than it needs to be. This is a movie about a jewel thief who sees the president commit a crime and then sees the Secret Service kill a woman to cover up that crime. That’s a pulpy plot that should be a lot of fun, but the movie takes itself too seriously and is a bit too gritty.

There’s a murder at the White House. That’s about all the plot you need to have. Once again, a young woman turns up dead (it’s tough to be a young woman around the White House when people are committing crimes), and a homicide detective has to team with a Secret Service agent to figure it out. There is, of course, a larger conspiracy at hand.

Barry Levinson’s political satire Wag the Dog is both a little obvious in its commentary and a really good, well-made movie. It garnered two Oscar nominations, one for screenplay and one for Best Actor for Dustin Hoffman. To keep the president from being embroiled in a sex scandal, a D.C. spin doctor and a Hollywood producer join forces to cook up a fake war as a distraction. With the talent on hand, the movie is able to be compelling and exciting even if some of the “insights” make you roll your eyes.

Speaking of rolling your eyes at political commentary! In his only work of fiction, Michael Moore directed a somewhat-obvious political satire that is kind of amusing, at least. The movie stars John Candy and features Alan Alda and Rip Torn, which helps. Moore was just perhaps not equipped for fiction. Alda plays an unpopular president who gins up a war with Canada to try and boost his Q rating. Candy plays a sheriff in Niagara Falls, New York who takes the declaration of war a bit too seriously.

From a tone perspective, “Advise and Consent” couldn’t be much more different from “Canadian Bacon.” Otto Preminger directed this procedural drama with a cast teeming with excellent actors of the era. At the top of the depth chart is Henry Fonda. Fonda plays a man nominated for Secretary of State who commits perjury during his confirmation hearings, and Preminger’s film chronicles the whole process.

With a tagline like “Sometimes you can assassinate a leader without firing a shot,” you know what kind of political drama you’re in for. After second-term president Jackson Evans’ vice president dies, he has to appoint somebody to replace him. His decision then sparks a scandal that threatens to envelop his entire administration. “The Contender” got two Oscar nominations, one for Joan Allen, and one for Jeff Bridges.

In this Aaron Sorkin-penned movie, Michael Douglas plays a widower president who starts up a romantic relationship with Annette Bening. This causes a scandal, but honestly that shouldn’t be the scandal. Bening’s character is an environmental lobbyist. “The American President” does not make nearly big enough a deal of the fact that the president is romantically involved with somebody whose job is literally to lobby the government for things.

We grant you that scandal is not central to “Escape from New York.” It’s mostly about Snake Plissken in a version of New York that is a maximum security prison to rescue the president. John Carpenter’s film is a quality ‘80s action flick. However, in all that there is also some political scandal involving the president to be found. Also, even in a dystopian future we have to assume turning New York into a giant prison caused some controversy.

Not every president in “24” is up to no good. Some, though, naturally turn out to be villains in the story of that particular season. It would be weird if Jack Bauer’s missions never ended with the president being in on it. Fortunately, “24” mixed it up enough that you don’t know for certain which way things were going to turn out.

Aaron Sorkin is back at it again. In everybody’s favorite liberal-leaning political drama that doesn’t hold up from a logic perspective, Josiah Bartlet’s presidency often features scandals and controversies. Now, because of Sorkin’s decisions from a storytelling perspective, Barlet is almost always in the right, and has been proven to be through speechifying. We grant that there are holes to be poked in “The West Wing,” but that’s also true of “Frasier” or “Game of Thrones” and basically every show ever made. It’s still fairly entertaining.

“House of Cards” will have the legacy of being the first big original show for Netflix. Yes, that’s the only thing it’ll be remembered for. Nothing else. Definitely not. Anyway, while the show was spotty and over-the-top, it certainly captured the zeitgeist and helped usher in the modern TV landscape. It’s also packed with as much political scandal and conspiracy as one can muster.

“Paradise” is twists stacked on twists stacked on twists until you’re exhausted. The Hulu show takes so many big swings that it’s hard to mention any of them without spoiling something (not that we’re necessarily recommending watching the show). Sterling K. Brown plays a Secret Service agent at a time when the president is murdered. That as much as “Paradise” gives you initially, but that first big twist comes in the pilot, if you’re curious.

Here’s a presidential political thriller starring Clint Eastwood that works a bit better. John Malkovich is a former CIA agent who is planning to assassinate the president, and his boisterousness causes a bit of scandal. Eastwood plays a former Secret Service agent who returns to the presidential detail for the first time since the assassination of JFK. Yes, Eastwood plays a Secret Service agent who has spent years trying to live down being on the detail that day in Dallas.

We’re being a bit speculative about the scandal, but we did want to include “Dr. Strangelove.” It’s a great movie and probably the best political satire in history. Also, we assume that when people found out that a series of paranoid delusions and miscommunications led to nuclear war between the U.S. and the Soviet Union it caused quite a bit of scandal. You know, until everybody on the planet was wiped out.

Speaking of the best political satires in history, on the small screen, “Veep” wins on that front. There are all sorts of White House scandals to be found. They are found when Selina Meyer is the vice president, and certainly later when she becomes president. It’s wall-to-wall scandals and vulgarity, baby! We love it.

We end here because, first of all, “Black Dynamite” is a really fun parody of blaxploitation movies you should see if you haven’t. Second of all, it’s an example of a real president being involved in a fictional scandal in a movie. Naturally, what with “Black Dynamite” being a blaxploitation parody, Richard Nixon has to show up at some point. Yes, he’s up to no good.