Before there was VEEP, there was The Thick of It. The brainchild of the same writer, Armando Iannucci, it offered a funnier and much more scathing view of modern-day politics. It's about Britain, but it could just as easily been about here.
The antihero on the show is Malcolm Tucker, a foul-mouthed, conniving spinmeister extraordinaire for Britain's prime minister. (As in VEEP, you never see the guy at the way top.) On each episode, he practices his dark arts to reign in wayward ministers and government flunkies who dare to go off message. Amazingly, you sympathize with him at the end. In this double-crossing, dissembling, corrupt world, at least Tucker is honest that he's a two-timing son of a bitch. Everyone else hides their treachery.
Tucker's dialogue is as good as anything ever produced by playwright David Mamet. Here's a few samples:
"Today, you have laid your first big fat egg of solid f*ck. You took the data loss media strategy and you ate it with a lump of E.coli. And then you sprayed it out of your arse at 300 mph."
"No, he's useless. He's absolutely useless. He's as useless as a marzipan dildo."
"I'd love to stop and chat with you, but I'd rather have Type 2 Diabetes."
Ultimately, the show is about the perversion of political discourse. Every word you say matters, yet no one ever says anything coherent. One slip-up can cost you your career, but you can do the most offensive things and get away with it. No one seems able to have a thought without it trailing off into ellipses.
You can see the show on Hulu and Amazon.