‘Madam Secretary’ Is No Hillary Clinton

Téa Leoni plays Elizabeth McCord in the new CBS drama Madam Secretary. TV critics are comparing her character to Hillary Clinton “given the hair color” and a Benghazi-like crisis which will be featured in the second episode. However, Leoni didn’t meet with Clinton, she met with the first female Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. Although Leoni said she’ll take some of Albright’s secrets to her grave–more than Albright will do–Leoni did reveal that Albright told the actress she faced more sexism in the US than abroad.

Another reason why the Madam Secretary character Elizabeth McCord shouldn’t be compared to Hillary Clinton is because as the fictional president (Keith Carradine) says to McCord in the show: “You’re the least political person I know.” That doesn’t sound right for Hillary–to her friends or enemies. The president used to be McCord’s boss at the CIA–he pulled her away from academia to fill the cabinet seat after his first Secretary was killed in a mysterious plane crash (like real life Clinton administration Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown). The pilot of Madam Secretary premieres Sunday, September 21 at 8:30ET, right before CBS’s hit drama The Good Wife–whose protagonist, a lawyer with a cheating husband in politics, shouldn’t be compared to Hillary Clinton either!