Oh, I know, the new show about a secretary of state who wanted to be president and whose husband once was president isn’t all about Hillary Clinton. But it’s fun to watch a strong smart woman, even fictional, stand up to her detractors, be it a Russian fanny pincher, cut-throat columnist or egocentric two-timing spouse.

The TV show  Political Animals on USA stars Sigourney Weaver as Elaine Barrish Hammond. Her character is said to be only loosely based on a familiar feminist liberal powerhouse who holds the job of top diplomat in the world. But even make believe, it’s a pleasure to remind ourselves that some women make great world leaders.

And while a weekly dose of this may not be the perfect antidote to the current War on Women, I do like thinking that some Neanderthals might suffer a little heartburn  watching the indomitable Sigourney.

I bet those radical feminist nuns are tuned in.

The creator of  Political Animals is an unabashed Hillary fan. Producer Greg Berlanti told the New York Times he gave money to Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential primary and had her in mind when he created the show. But then he mixed in some Hollywood style family drama. Which is probably why in the first segment the characters are so over the top. The former president a little too crude and lecherous. The secretary’s mother, a little too drunk. The columnist a little too mean and gorgeous. The gay son, a little too damaged.

But the secretary of state is not too soft, not too tough,  even though some people call the fictional Elaine the same name that Newt’s mother once called the real Hillary.  Elaine is both ambitious and charming, a confident professional and a push-over for her kids.

Like Hillary, she’s nicely complicated.

There is a cathartic moment as the show begins when the fictional Elaine tells the fictional Bud she wants a divorce.  This dramatic turn, of course, did not happen with the real Hill and Bill. She stayed with the guy even after he committed the most stupid, humiliating act of his life and then lied about it and, in some people’s minds, caused irreparable damage to his presidency and his party.

While I personally worried about Hillary back then and wished she’d publicly call him a louse and punch him in the nose, I did recognize that they were not your ordinary couple. And, as it turned out, in staying, she kind of won.

Today the real Hillary is beloved around the world, more respected than ever, with many hoping that if she really does end this job, she’ll be back running for president in 2016.

There is a scene in Political Animals where the couple gives us an idea of their unusual bond. Even though he still keeps his hand in politics and down the front of the wrong dress and she now outranks him, they have a partnership that works. They use each other, but they comfort each other. The relationship between Madam Secretary and Mr. President, as perplexing on TV as in real life, may not make much sense to us mere everyday folks, but it seems to fuel both political animals.

The real Hillary has been too busy dealing with China and Pakistan, Egypt and Syria and all the other troubled part of the world to worry about her TV image, although I’m happy to read that, just like the Elaine character, she is known to relax and go dancing.

I’m in. I still have my brown T-shirt with the blue Hillary on the front. It never got enough wear the first time.

The rich and powerful don’t want to pay any more taxes. In fact they think they should  pay less. And if it means that the streets fill with even more pain and suffering…and protesters… too bad. They’ll just build a bigger moat.

Do you believe that? I don’t. At least I don’t want to. Yet that’s what their lackeys in Washington would have us think. That all rich people are Scrooge McDuck or like mean Mr. Potter beating up on Jimmy Stewart.

But it’s hard to know who they are. The super rich don’t show themselves much. We only know that the likes of John Boehner and Mitch McConnell would throw the 99 percent under a limo to protect the one percent. And that the Newt Gingrich/Mitt Romney chorus line likes the rich better than the rest of us.

There have been a few who dared to come out and say they’d be willing to donate a few more bucks to the common good. Investor Warren Buffet took a heroic stand this summer when he wrote an op-ed piece in the New York Times urging lawmakers to raise taxes on millionaires so that they pay the same or higher rate as middle class people.

Microsoft king Bill Gates has said he’s “generally in favor of the idea that the rich pay somewhat more than everyone else.” Earlier this month a small group calling themselves Patriotic Millionaires went to Capitol Hill not with their hands out, but, amazingly, with their wallets open, offering to pay more taxes. And while we don’t hear much about it, they are apparently not alone. In fact, 68 percent of millionaires say they support a tax increase for those earning $1 million or more, according to a survey by the Spectrum Group.

But the Republican leadership says no, no, no, we must spare the rich. When the non-rich complain about the rich the Republicans say we’re all simply jealous. They insist the rich need even more tax loopholes. They make it sound like the rich are the downtrodden Americans.

Yet, by their silence we can only assume that the very richest of the rich are fine with their fat-cat image. And with the desperation of all the stray dogs.

That’s a nasty picture.  But if the rich don’t like their portrait why aren’t they standing up to change it? They don’t even have to do the Warren Buffet thing. Maybe they have a good explanation for why they can’t make it on their bazillions alone. I don’t hate the rich, but I would feel a lot kinder toward them if I knew they were willing to help balance this grotesque inequality so many of their brethren have exploited. They behave like they own this country. When in fact they owe this country.

As the wise Elizabeth Warren points out, “There is no one in this country who got rich on his own.”

Michael Moore is plenty rich. He made his personal fortune pointing out the inequities in our system and was recently called on by Piers Morgan to defend his wealth and his sympathies for Occupy Wall Street. Moore told Morgan that having money and caring about poor people is not mutually exclusive. No more than being white and marching with Martin Luther King or being straight and voting for gay marriage. It’d be nice to see a few more super rich celebrities show us who they’re marching with.

Can you imagine this? Rich people declaring, “I am wealthy and I do not approve of this image.” Rich people standing up to Republicans. Republicans standing up to Republicans. Heck, Obama could sell tickets to that and pay off the deficit.

The morning before I talked to Shirley MacLaine I saw a bumper sticker in my neighborhood that said “Multi-dimensional and loving it.” It all seemed so synchronistic, so meant to be. Of course I live in Northern California and the famous actress/author/channeler lives in Santa Fe. Places that are comfortable with the woo-woo.

But Shirley said, oh no. It’s everywhere. In fact as she does her one woman show around the country, performing in Santa Rosa last weekend, the audience asks her more about mystical stuff than the movies. “I show them film clips of the Rat Pack and talk about Dean and Frank. And what do they want to ask me about? About the things in my books. They want to know what does this memory mean? Why am I here?

“You know why? Because the world’s in a terrible mess. The civilization is faltering. Everyone’s looking for answers.”

I like Shirley. I like that she says she’s never going to stop asking why. And that while many scoffed at her claims of reincarnation and books on psychic searching she did a lot to help nudge the mainstream into considering what else is out there.

I also love that she’s 77 and vibrant. With those long legs and that delighted laugh that goes with the grinning twinkling face.  As a friend said, “That woman had cute down pat.”

At her age, however, cute is not big enough. More like nicely seasoned. Now she’s written a book called I’m Over All That.. and Other Confessions. It’s her 13th book. The woman has sold  20 million books.

She’s made 63 films including the new Bernie with Jack Black. It’s about a funeral director in Texas. “I play the town bitch,” she bragged.

She also just won the Legion of Honor in France, that country’s most prestigious cultural award. For those looking for role models on how to stay passionate, relevant and visible Shirley MacLaine is a good one.

She’s adamant about daily exercise – yoga, tai chi, stretching exercises for her hips -“you have to take care of your hips.” She lives alone with her dog,  prefers hanging out with friends to Hollywood parties, had a face lift at 50 and colors her hair red to match her spirit which is one of the best rationalizations I’ve ever heard for covering the gray.

Another beauty tip: “No overhead lights. They make you look like Grandma Moses.”

Her role as Aurora, the controlling mother in Terms of Endearment, is the one she best relates to personally. “Impossible at times, all over the map with her emotions, funny, judgmental, loving.” We talked about the scene where her hospitalized daughter needs pain meds and no one brings her any until Aurora rages after them. They’re delivered and she quietly says, “Thank you.”

“We did that in one take,” she said. “I don’t know if that was pure Aurora or pure Shirely MacLaine.”

About the men she’s bedded, it felt so People Magazine-y to ask. But of course I checked them out in her book.  Yes on Robert Mitchum and Yves Montand. No on Jack Lemmon. Too nice. And Jack Nicholson, too dangerous. I told her that my husband lovingly recalls the shot of her in Irma le Douce walking up the stairs in her green tights. He says it is forever etched in his mind.

That brought the famous laugh.