Asymmetrical Information

I thought it was enjoyable to watch that way of handling things, if rather amusing considering the source.

Finally, I suppose our force is so overwhelmingly superior that there's no downside to giving the enemy's ambassador an accurate inventory of military equipment in use?

Well, who says it's accurate? In particular the "3 destroyers", which aren't normally part of the equipment of an Army division.

But, gee, can't we "win without war"?

I've noticed that Sorkin has a love affair with particular turns of phrase, like "Let's throw it out on the stoop and see if the cat licks it up."
One of those phrases seems to be "run up the flag." In the cases he's used them, they've been particularly inappropriate. In the other instance, Leo asks if the solution to the problem is "the American flag over Mecca." You know, I don't think Perle, Wolfowitz or any others in the 'neo-con boogeyman club' in their wildest wet dreams would want that.

It's my humble opinion after thinking about all the episodes that Sorkin can do characters or dialogue, but he can't do plot, much less foreign policy.

One more thing -- the Situation Room is another example of how liberals (come on, Sorkin's not one?) think the government works with absolute central control. They seem to think that the president is in a room actually directing military strikes. I wouldn't be surprised if later on the show, we see the President actually pushing a button that drops a bomb or maybe suiting up to take down Qumar himself. Is the President actually the guy that orders 'Force Protection Charlie'? Where the hell is the Defense Secretary in all of this? Moreover, they *always* get the small details on the military wrong, especially in the interests of drama. For example, a "CIA wet team" -- we wouldn't need a CIA counter-terror force to operate in a foreign country. Goshdang it, this show drives me crazy sometimes.

I'm not a fan of "West Wing" (nothing against it, actually, I don't watch much television, period), so I'm curious:

Before intervening, did President Bartlett go to the UN?

Did the UN approve this attack on a sovereign state, and did it use Chapter 6 or 7 in the resolution?

Was there any opposition on the part of fellow Democrats against Bartlett's use of force?

Was there any opposition on the part of the (presumably opposition) Republicans against Bartlett's use of force?

Did the SecDef and the SecState agree on foreign policy, regarding this intervention?

I watch West Wing occasionally, but it jumped the shark after the second season.

It's a pity, because the smart writing, especially the interplay between the characters was so good that one looked forward to the next episode...especially amid the mindless dreck that is network TV.

Feste: Pun intended, I assume.

Dean: No hint of any of the first four. State had some problems with the new doctrine because the Communications Director broke it to them by means of a new rankless speechwriter (who was made a deputy at the inaugural). State is sort of viewed like the French (with disdain).

As an inveterate punster...I just couldn't resist.

Well, allow me to post the following...

I pulled this off the Net somewhere, but I will assume it is correct, although I did not happen to see the episode personally.

PRESIDENT JEB BARTLETT: "We're for freedom of speech everywhere. We're for freedom of worship everywhere. We're for freedom to learn for everybody. And because in our time you can build a bomb in your country and bring it to my country, what goes on in your country is very much my business, and so we're for freedom from tyranny everywhere, whether in the guise of political oppression, Toby, or economic slavery, Josh, or religious fanaticism, C.J. That most fundamental idea cannot be met with merely our support. It must be met with our strength diplomatically, economically and materially. And if Pharaoh still doesn't free the slaves, than he's going to meet my cavalry."
--

He's going to meet my cavalry?!?!? Well, fine, but Martin, what is the deal? Are you arguing with your writers? Is Jeb Bartlett doing things that Martin Sheen finds utterly despicable, unconscionable, and wrong? Is he?

Sure seems that way. Or does President Bartlett mean well, so such arrogant unilaterist moralism if fully justified? Mr. Bush, however, is a right wing Christian fanatic who just wants to steal oil, presumably so he can drown puppies in it for his own amusement, so no dice, cowboy.

I rather like Marting Sheen.. still. But I'd really love to hear him comment on this apparent dichotomy. Granted, an actor is not his character, but to see President Bartlett do what Sheen and company bitterly condemn Mr. Bush for is bizarre to say the least.

The whole Khundu, Qumar storyline is just bizzare. You know the writers and the actors would never endorse any of this crap in real life. Sheen never met a commie bastard he didn't like. The West Wing has become some sort of odd parody of the Bush Administration with some random "here's why Democrats would do it better" Monday-morning quarterbacking thrown in.

Frankly it's seems to be a kind of schizophrenia -- I see it in guys like Sorkin and Sheen but also in friends of mine who are Democrats -- out of one side of their mouth they say things like, "let's bomb Iraq until sand turns to glass," and then out of the other its, "Bush hasn't presented a case. Where's the proof?"

It's a very weird behavior -- the people I know aren't exactly embracing Republican ideals, it's more of an violent extremism as if they have Turrets. Examples include the violence of anti-war protests or perhaps the volumes of hate mail that many bloggers receive. Perhaps the West Wing is just one gigantic, expensively produced peice of hate mail?

It's obvious why the SecDef is missing. It's a Democratic administration. The SecDef doesn't have a clue about what he is supposed to be doing. No wonder the Prez has to do it all himself.

I expect to see protesters carrying "At Least President Nzili Was Elected" signs in a future episode.

Actors, people... actors on a TV show. Feel free to unclench.

Sorry, no time for the losers wing. Too busy watching reruns of South Park.

The similarity and differences in the Qumar story to the real Rawandan genocide are frightening. Of course, in that real genocide the Democratic president and the UN chose not to take action, and over 800,000 died. It seems that the writers (some of whom worked for that real president) are trying to rewrite the history of their own guilt. They didn't save real people; but actors can save the Qumar ... sad to watch.

Megan--Very nice analysis of West Wing. I'm astonished that nobody else seem to have picked up on the Bushification of Bartlett. Sorkin has always worked hard to correct Clinton through West Wing. Now he is working on having Clinton and Bush jointly inhabit Martin Sheen. Bizarre.
Apropos of whatever, here is my last October column on the subject, which overlaps you a bit.
Regards,
John Leo



"The West Wing" is back for its fourth season on NBC, trailing a lot of new Emmys, high expectations and, of course, controversy. It really is a terrific show, with unusally strong dialogue, humor and dramatic impact. I thought the second-season finale with President Bartlet arguing bitterly with God (in Latin, no less) over the problem of evil and the death of a beloved secretary was a daring episode that worked well.

The problem with the show, not a new one, is that your enjoyment is likely to be enhanced if you happen to view politics through the eyes of Barbra Streisand. On last week's opening show, when two White House aides were introduced to a few schoolgirls in Indiana, one girl asked, "How many unborn babies did you guys kill today?" This is the show's established level of subtlety in dealing with abortion. In the pilot for the show, an anti-abortion zealot sent the president's granddaughter a Raggedy Ann doll with a knife through its throat.

Scripts explain many abstract political issues with care and fairness, from census sampling to demands that the penny be abolished. But the fairness routinely disappears on hot-button cultural and partisan issues. A conservative Christian minister visiting the White House doesn't even know the Ten Commandments. He is accompanied by a family-values woman who delivers sly anti-Semitic remarks. A Dr. Laura figure is so obnoxious that she refuses to stand when President Bartlet enters the room. Because of her Bible-based opposition to homosexuality, she is crudely humiliated by the president in front of a hundred guests. The nitwit Republican governor of Florida, Bartlet's opponent in his campaign for re-election, is a cartoon version of President Bush right out of Saturday Night Live. He thinks Mexico is in NATO and favors the blockading of the Port of Miami.

Aaron Sorkin, the creator and chief writer of the show, says he orders up four pro and four con arguments for every issue in the scripts. If so, on every liberal issue the four cons are apparently thrown away unused. Sorkin has been frank about using the show for political effect. "Weak-willed Democrats have been the enemy as much as the Republicans have been the enemy on this show," he said. Under pressure to demonstrate some fairness, he hired two former aides to Republican presidents, Peggy Noonan and Marlin Fitzwater, as consultants. Noonan says she wrote a script segment on affirmative action featuring C.J. Cregg, Bartlet's press secretary, explaining that her father's life had been shattered when he was shunted aside in favor of less qualified non-white jobseekers. In Sorkin's rewrite, C.J.'s father wasn't shattered or a victim of government. He was doing just fine, "in part because that's how Aaron thinks about affirmative action and it's his show," Noonan wrote in the Wall Street Journal. Noonan said she likes Sorkin and likes the show, though she considers it "a left-wing nocturnal emission."

Sorkin seems committed to rewriting the Clinton years, and Clinton's character as well. He launched this ambitious project as scriptwriter for "The American President," a solid and enjoyable 1995 movie. Here the Clinton figure isn't a married man playing with female staffers. He is a widower pilloried by a sinister Bob Dole figure for falling in love with an environmental lobbyist who once attended a rally where an American flag was burned.

On "The West Wing," the president is censured by Congress for lying. But here the lie is much more forgiveable than most of those Clinton is famous for--Bartlet merely concealed that he suffers from multiple sclerosis. The fictional surgeon-general gets in trouble, not for being an utter fool, as Jocelyn Elders was, but for favoring legal marijuana. The "cookie" issue of 1992--Hillary Clinton's sarcastic reference to people who expected her to stay at home and bake cookies--was replayed last week as a demonstration against Bartlet's wife by lunatic women with aprons and rolling pins. In large ways and small, Sorkin is supplanting the real Clinton presidency with a fantasy version of what might have been. The refurbished Clinton doesn't cut corners, sell pardons or take polls to figure out what to do. He has no trouble keeping his pants on during office hours. Here, somewhat late, is a President Clinton we can trust.

Sorkin's project looks forward as well as backward. One supporter calls him "the loyal opposition" in politics today. If this means that he is a more effective promoter of liberal Democratic talking points than anyone in or around Washington, the statement is surely right. Gore and Daschle can't do what President Bartlet can. "The West Wing" is a one-sided view of Washington as seen from a one-party town--Hollywood. The show is very good. And it's smoothly unfair, week after week.

October 7, 2002

I'm with Feste; the West Wing jumped the shark. The whole Qumar plotline is ridiculous. The domestic terrorism that killed dozens of people during a college swim match (?!) had no purpose other than to have President Bartlet talk about terrorism.

However, to read any kind of political meaning into it vis-a-vis Martin Sheen is rather pointless. He doesn't write it. And regardless of his political views, I don't see him throwing away an extremely lucrative job because he may not agree with the, uh, "policies" of a fictional president.

I mean, really. I wouldn't expect him to, either. It's just a television show.

During the early days of West Wing I would watch with a sense of disappointment. Disappointment because I did not believe that there were people in the real West Wing, especially the Oval Office, who were as intelligent, motivated, and principled as those portrayed on the television show.

Now that the Great Fellatee is out of office, I would love to believe that things have changed, but the fact that we are still dicking around with the UN shows that the current President (whom I voted for)has little more spine than the last one to take an action he knows is right, damn the political cost.

Of the current administration, Colin Powell is perhaps the only one that I believe acts in the way he thinks is best, rather than the way he believes the rest of us think is best.

A big ditto to what Ray said; this is Sorkin et. al. trying to re-write the Clinton years in the minds of the viewing populace. Let us not forget it was Clinton and the U.N. who failed to protect hundreds of thousands from slaughter in the face of direct and dire warnings. Remember, Clinton was the one with the gaul to go to Africa the following year and offer a token 'apology' for his own failure. Hmm, wonder when Bartlett is gonna be singing mea culpas for some horrid blunder??

I must admit that I was amazed at this episode. If I hadn't known that Sorkin is an unreconstructed idiotarian, I would have thought that the writers were extolling the virtues of a proactive stance against genocide.. In fact, extolling the once standard (but now spat-upon by the 'intellectual elite') virtues which American-led Christian society has exported to the world since the early 1800's.

But Sorkin I suppose thought that *this* Bartlett would be a *perfect* Frankenstein vision of the President, so show up GWB, to show GWB as a blodd thirsty uncaring monster. WRONG! It shows Bartlett as a powerful and caring President, who recognizes evil, can do something about it, and will do something about it. (Just like GWB).

Now the idiotarians of Hollywood may scream *at* this Bartlett, or think that it is a great parody of Bush, but a large proportion of the population agrees with this viewpoint.

BTW have you noticed that Saturday Night Live has a great shtick going with parody news conferences by Donald Rumsfeld... *His* character does the straight lines..its the journalists who are parodied...There's been a sea-change in viewpoint. Generally the media and especially Hollywood is clueless about it...Anyone who says "Of course Saddam is a murdering dictator, but....." is still on the wrong side of the change..

On reflection, it appears that Sorkin has 'issues' with authority. He has Bartlett (a Democrat...peace-loving yadda yadda) do exactly those things which in his meme only crass bloodthirsty Republicans should do.. like assassinate terrorists... use force to stop genocide..Do we detect a little schizophrenia here?

My two cents..

Geoff

The difference is really clear. Democrats favor the use of force when there is absolutely no chance that American interests could be helped. See Haiti, Kosovo. When it's purely humanitarian, it's okay.

RE Dan Palmer & "Dicking around with the UN"- have you looked at CNN lately?

Yes, I have seen CNN lately. And I am very happy that we finally seem to be ready to go.

But it took at least a couple of weeks too long. As soon as we had the requisite troops in place, we should have moved forward. All that was accomplished by the pointless attempts to bring such important nations as Ghana on board was to provide Hussein with additional time to prepare, possibly causing the deaths of American, British, and Australian soldiers as a result.

Don't misunderstand me, I am in NO hurry to see American soldiers die. My uncle is Marine and a veteran of Vietnam and Desert Storm, I don't think he will be involved in this action, but the possibility always exists. But this war is the right thing to do; right for the USA, right for the people of Iraq, and ultimately, I believe right for the middle east.

Dan: President Bush did not delay for Ghana, he did it for Tony Blair, a courageous and principled leader holding fast in the face of enormous political pressure. Mr. Blair, it turns out, is the opposite of Bill Clinton. It has been a difficult couple of weeks for those of us who support the war, but delay was the price of honor. And the honorable Mr. Bush, as we already knew, is the opposite of Jacque Chirac.

Dan, Chris:

As you now, the question is now moot, as of 7:00 PM EST.

Mindles:

Thanks for the description of the show. I've never watched The West Wing (I only hooked the TV up to an antenna again three years ago, after seeing an episode of Buffy, the Best Television Show in Historytm at a friends house.) Very amusing to hear of Sorokin's hawkishness. Now, let's see if we can get him on camera commenting on W.'s presidency, then play the tape of that episode . . .

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