Daily Inspiration Quote by William Devane

Devane’s line lands because it treats “reality” as the bigger joke than television. He’s not pitching a character twist so much as puncturing the old prestige-drama fantasy that power is mainly about hard choices and noble burdens. His alternate role - a secretary of state with sprawling private business entanglements - is a blunt diagnosis of how governance is often perceived now: as a marketplace where policy and profit share a bloodstream.

As an actor, Devane frames the idea in practical, almost workmanlike terms (“What I would have liked to do”), which makes the cynicism feel less like a rant and more like an industry note: the script is behind the times. That casualness is the sting. He’s implying that the more “realistic” political drama isn’t ideological combat or West Wing competence-porn; it’s the mundane mechanics of conflicts of interest, the soft corruption that doesn’t always look like a bribe because it’s been normalized into networking, branding, and “relationships.”

The subtext is also about audience appetite. Viewers have been trained by decades of scandals, revolving-door appointments, and globalized wealth to read public service through a suspicious lens. Devane is wagering that the most believable secretary of state now is one who can’t enter a room without dragging a portfolio behind them.

It’s a meta-critique of TV’s lag time: institutions can rebrand faster than scripts can, and the most implausible thing on political television may be the absence of personal enrichment.