"The Unit" is a CBS prime time TV show about the missions impossible of a clandestine military group of Army Rangers who answer only to the President and who make Navy Seals look like security guards.

But the action drama is just as much about the soldiers' wives as it is about the men who save the world.

While "The Unit" husbands are putting down tyranny and terrorists from Baghdad to Zimbabwe, the wives cope with the fact that their husbands are almost never home.

"Unit" leader, Jonas Blane (played by Dennis Haysbert, the first-black president assassinated in Fox Broadcasting's "24" action-drama series season opener this year) is married to Molly Blane, the matriarch of the wives' group.

Molly also happens to be a real estate agent -- a damn good one.

She empowers the wives with a joint real estate purchase that helps keep them busy managing property instead of wringing their hands over the fateful day a uniformed officer will show up with bad news about their husbands.

Entertainment media outlets typically portray the real estate industry as a gaggle of quacks waddling after a fast buck, but this spin on the character of a real estate agent is a refreshing, stereotype-busting look at the job.

Considering a home purchase is for many the most valuable transaction most people will every complete, most real estate agents are empowering, by the very nature of what they do.

The National Association of Realtors recently chided ABC Good Morning America's "Tricks of the Trade, Confessions of A Realtor" as "very inaccurate, grossly misleading and unfair depiction of the nation's Realtors."

"ABC has done a terrible disservice by airing this segment. The network should demonstrate its own interest in ethical behavior by giving equal time to the truth about Realtors," NAR proclaimed.

Conversely, NAR should applaud "The Unit" and other positive entertainment media portrayals of the industry.

Molly is played by Regina Taylor a Golden Globe-winning and Emmy-nominated actor who came out of retirement at the behest of David Mamet, writer, director and executive producer of "The Unit."

Ironically, Mamet is the same 1984 Pulitzer Prize winning playwright of another story solely about the exploits of not-so-empowering real estate agents.

The "Glengarry Glen Ross" play ("It takes brass balls to sell real estate.") is about the boiler room operations of a real estate agency in 1980s Chicago, selling undesirable real estate at over-inflated prices, replete with inhouse backbiting.

The drama also won a Tony award for Best Play Revival in 2005 and spun into a 1992 movie by the same name starring Al Pacino, Jack Lemmon, Alec Baldwin, Alan Arkin and Kevin Spacey.

Mamet's "The Unit" offers a much more endearing portrayal of the real estate profession in Molly Blane whose real estate deal thwarts an ex-Unit wife's attempt to lure Unit wives into a dicey private sector investment.

Molly joins the real estate investment to show her confidence in the deal, explains it isn't an overnight gold mine, but a solid investment over time, and she helps the wives scramble to come up with the down payment when the seller jacks up the price.

The wives trust Molly. They believe in her.

Molly isn't just a real estate agent who knows her craft, but a real individual as well.

As a mom, she lends a compassionate, but tough-love, ear to her teenage daughter's fears about college life where blacks are in the minority.

As a wife, she's steel (for negotiating with her husband and her clients) wrapped in silk (as a loving partner and articulate business woman), revealing the kind of compelling personal qualities many seek in a good agent.

Every profession has its bad units, but most agents are much more like Molly.

Published: April 13, 2006

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Broderick Perkins parlayed a career in old-school journalism into a contemporary digital news service that really hits home. The award-winning consumer journalist, originally from Wilmington, DE, is founder, publisher and executive editor of the bootstrap DeadlineNews Group, a Silicon Valley-based editorial content and consulting service specializing in residential real estate, consumer news and related editorial consulting services. The DeadlineNews Group includes the website, DeadlineNews.com, offering real estate editorial content and consulting services, and its back shop, the Deadline Newsroom, an open house on news that really hits home. Perkins obtained his formal journalism education from University of Delaware and a journalism boot camp, the Institute of Journalism Education at the University of California-Berkeley. He went on to 20 years of service as a daily newspaper journalist at the Wilmington, DE News Journal and San Jose, CA Mercury News. Perkins covered housing on the San Jose Mercury News reporting team which earned a General News Reporting Pulitzer Prize in 1989 for coverage of the Loma Prieta earthquake. He has also produced real estate, consumer and small business content for the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, RealtyTimes.com, Nolo.com, Better Homes and Gardens, the National Association of Realtors, Homestore/Move and Intuit/Quicken among more than three dozen publications. In addition to managing the DeadlineNews Group, Perkins most recently served as chief editorial consultant for Nolo's Essential Guide To Buying Your First Home, Nolo, and writes real estate television scripts for RealtyTimes.com.