It Could Be Worse for Government Workers on TV

As commenter Bruce Rodman pointed out on my post on Bones:

Fringe, on the other hand, had an episode in which a deadly virus had infected 12 people in an office building. CDC was on site with a lot of fancy equipment, quarantined the building, and eventually got the State Department (?) to approve having the Army kill the infected people. (Fortunately, and not surprisingly, there was a last-minute cure developed!)

I do really think the most pernicious things television shows can do to their characters who work for the government is to portray them as conspiratorial. That perspective serves to feed paranoid trends, while doing precisely nothing to foster honest discussion about what government does, and doesn't, do right. Motivational concerns are worth discussing, but only when they're real. Or at least, realistic.