TV political drama known for its walk and talks / TUE 1-3-23 / Bird in Tootsie Pop commercials since 1970 / Epitome of slipperiness / Multitasker's browserful

 

Meggin Patricia Cabot (born February 1, 1967) is an American novelist. She has written and published over 50 novels of young adult and adult fiction and is best known for her young adult series Princess Diaries, which was later adapted by Walt Disney Pictures into two feature films. Cabot has been the recipient of numerous book awards, including the New York Public Library Books for the Teen Age, the American Library Association Quick Pick for Reluctant Readers, the Tennessee Volunteer State TASL Book Award, the Book Sense Pick, the Evergreen Young Adult Book Award, the IRA/CBC Young Adult Choice, and many others. She has also had number-one New York Times bestsellers, and more than 25 million copies of her books are in print across the world. (wikipedia)

So I am going to move now from blaming my possible blogging impairment on jet lag to blaming it on illness (and also still somehow jet lag). I was on the couch all day watching movies while my wife was in bed all day just sleeping with the cat (who was Extremely happy with this development, thank you very much—nowhere he'd rather be than curled up next to "The Lady," which is what he, that is I-doing-his-voice, calls Penelope). It is currently 11-something PM and I just *woke up* from my latest short / fitful sleeping episode. The worst is over, but oof, sleep, it is not on schedule. Anyway, my solving skills seem to be still intact, but I feel like I must have missed something with the theme, as I cannot find the "MOVE FAST" component and I'm sure there must be one. Or else, I feel there should be one and so I'm stubbornly still searching. The lack of such a component, combined with my inherent revulsion at the revealer phrase (tech bro'y sloganeering can go jump in the sea), meant that I didn't really groove on this one. Its pop culture universe is also (largely) not my pop culture universe, but that's just ... the breaks (boom, big pun, even in sickness, still got it!). Don't know anything about "The Princess Diaries" so 2x "Princess Diaries" = 2x = [shrug] (22A: ___ Thermopolis, Anne Hathaway's role in "The Princess Diaries" => MIA). MEG CABOT's name does ring a bell, though—I've probably had her name in my eyeline countless times at the bookstore). Never did take to "THE WEST WING," but the whole Aaron Sorkin "walk and talk" thing, I have definitely heard of (I was a big fan of Sorkin's "Sports Night," which probably shares some dialogue characteristics with "West Wing"). I have read Sally ROONEY, though (61A: "Normal People" author Sally), and anyway, it's not like you needed to be Very familiar with any of these pop culture answers to solve the puzzle fairly quickly. My issues with the puzzle are, as I say, primarily thematic, in that it seems incompletely executed, and that revealer phrase, blargh.