Summer’s here, and so is filler TV, from Big Brother to Wife Swap. I won’t watch, not much anyway, but occasionally I will be just hungover enough.  What is it that’s so engrossing about a mother who is totally, totally shocked any woman would let her kids live that way, even as she’s just sent the one woman who would let-her-kids-live-that-way go mother her own? Hypocrisy, how much you entertain me when my stomach rumbles weakly and my foot swells biggish.

But America. We can do better. American Idol gets like thumpteen brazilian votes a show. The presidential polls, not so much. How better to get people to the voting booths than to merge Crossfire with So You Think You Can Dance? I present you with the following suggestions for your summer viewing pleasure:

Project Runway: Tim Gunn is skeeving Dick Cheney out, man! See Dick run with scissors. He’d better be careful: he didn’t purchase enough taffeta, and now he’s not got enough to cover Rumsfeld’s rump.  Meanwhile, Abramoff has been a bitch about the double stitcher, hogging that thing all day, and Ralph Reed is prancing around like a cat on a hot sand trap waiting to get his jersey knit swing skirt sewed up tight. Sexual tension mounts as Ralph prepares a surprise for Abramoff’s manikin.

ANTM: Condi Rice has been taking positively fierce photos, but she’ll have to learn from Tyra how to lose her ghetto attitude! Mary Matalin refuses to take her top off. Sexual tension mounts when she rides Barbara after the photo shoot.

Hell’s Kitchen: Ann Coulter is swearing by the magic she can do with just table salt, but when Chef Gordon Ramsey expresses more interest in Cokie Roberts’ rainforest pudding, not even Hillary’s charcoaled sugar-free apple pie can shut her up. Ramsey summarizes George Will and Tim Russert’s baseball-size meatballs with “middlebrow.”

Big Brother: The Supreme Court gets out of their robes and into their bikinis for the weekly food challenge. As sexual tension between Ruth and Tony mounts, Clarence pees in the pool. Ruth vows to evict him. In the Head of the Household Room, John R. tells the camera that “the Breyer-Scalia alliance is, like, so obvious.”

Trading Spouses: George and Hillary passive aggressively rearrange dinner table settings; meanwhile, sexual tension mounts as Laura delights in talking books with Bill. Bill suggests repeatedly, “Here, Laura, taste this!”

American Idol: The living presidential and vice presidential offspring compete for a record deal. America wets itself trying to vote them all off at the same time.

The Bachelor: Dennis Kucinich learns to tie his own bow as he prepares for the most exciting. rose ceremony. ever.

Animal Precinct: There’s a Scottie whose leg muscles have atrophied, whose foot pads have never touched the floor.  Annemarie Lucas is so on it. Flashlight handy, Adam Gankiewicz searches Air Force One for spare booze. No sexual tension, but the adorability factor runs high when the Scottie gets a grooming!

Survivor: Tom DeLay, George Soros, Ken Lay, Ted Turner, Libby Dole, John McCain and Michael Bloomberg huddle around a barrel fire in urban Detroit. John McCain bitches that the men are being sissies; George tries to fight his image as a traitor to retain his spot in the tribe. Sexual tension mounts between Ted and Tom when Tom admits that he used to have a thing for Boutros-Boutros-Ghali. Despite her underperformance in the Immunity Challenges, Libby Dole keeps her place in the tribe by catching the most rats.

The McLaughlin Group Does the Americas, and a Few Other Continents Inbetween: All your favorite McLaughlin Group regulars battle it out across the globe ala the Amazing Race, just so we can watch McLaughlin chow down on roaches in Kenya, tank in a hang glider, and charm the tip out of taxi drivers by repeating what he said a little louder each time. Sexual tension mounts between all teams at the climactic penultimate pit stop.

Hang on, America. This summer’s going to be hot!