I was watching Commander in Chief and, not having watched it regularly enough or with sufficient attention, was unclear as to one character's role, so I googled the show in hope of clarification. I ended up at this site. It proved satisfactory - it had the information I wanted - but one thing was peculiar. It described Nathan Templeton as el portavoz de la Casa Blanca, that is, "White House spokesman". Inexpert as I was, I knew this was wrong. Actually, Nathan Templeton is Speaker of the House of Representatives or portavoz de la Casa de Representantes. Evidently, the translator (its an American series and further googling suggests that the Spanish blurb is a translation of one provided in English by the network) confused the White House and the House of Representatives. Maybe we should find it heartening that the details of American government are not so universally familiar as to render such mistakes impossible.
Update 2006-01-04: some people have commented that the House of Representatives should be Cámara de Representantes. Both Casa and Cámara are in use as you can easily establish by googling for the two terms. Its possible that there is some sort of dialectal basis for the choice, but if so, I don't know what it is.
Posted by Bill Poser at January 4, 2006 01:21 AM