• The New York Times, Sunday, May 4, 2014 11:29 PM

"Greed, lust, envy, wrath and pride are the currencies of power in the nation’s capital, and some of its most dangerous brokers are women on television," writes Alessandra Stanley. She provides a quick survey of those "mean girls" -- from Scandal's "Vice President Sally Langston (Kate Burton), a born-again Christian who murdered her husband and wants to destroy the president who put her on the ticket," to KGB secret agent Elizabeth Jennings on "The Americans," the mistress of the cool kill. "On most network dramas, it is almost unthinkable to portray lead female characters as selfish, craven or incompetent" -- except in Washington, "where there is apparently nothing sexist or old school about painting women as venal, self-serving and manipulative," writes Stanley.

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