Like rhetoric (or, for that matter, liberal) the term political theater too often gets an undeserved thumbs down.
Showmanship does matter: Look at headliner Chris Christie.
Or consider the Gubernatorial Veto Override Mini-Series the New Jersey Democrats are staging in Trenton.
Despite a debut Monday that earned substantially less than boffo box office – all 15 attempts to cancel Chris Christie's budget blockbuster were flops – state Senate President Steve Sweeney will make another comeback attempt Tuesday.
The reviews by Republicans, including his erstwhile allies in the recent pension and bennies reform extravaganza, are scathingly predictable.
Moves to restore money for women's health services, poor people and seniors are mere "theater," opines Sen. Joseph Kyrillos.
Or as Sen. Tom Kean, Jr. offers in his even more devastating review, "political theater."
As if politics had nothing to do with theater, or vice-versa.
Take the costumes -- make that, the uniform – lockstep Republicans in New Jersey and nationally have put on for their holy roles as acolytes in the Church of the Almighty Deficits/Spending Cuts/Tax Breaks.
Better yet, keep in mind how stage-managed "town meetings," Fox News interviews and slick YouTube clips have transformed an abrasive, almost-boorish, and verging-on-morbidly-obese New Jersey governor into a national matinee idol.