February 22, 2003
From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:Left RightWest Wing
What an extraordinary episode of West Wing. Sorkin's idealized Democratic politics have become very confusing.
Let's review. The last two episodes covered the week leading up to Bartlett's second term inauguration speech. His new speechwriter (a familiar face to those of us who loved Sports Night, and playing the same geeky polymath character) gets testy with the President about standing by while an ethnic cleansing proceeds in the fictional African country of Khundu. Bartlett is also badgered by African dignitaries reminding him the U.S. would act differently if Khundu were in Europe. A few scenes of Toby nastiness and Presidential ruminating later, the new character's thoughts on foreign policy are included in the Inauguration speech and, as Jeb says, "we have a doctrine." Just what this doctrine is remains a but unclear, apart from the President's resolute, although slightly confusing quip - "there are women standing in front of tanks, and we got their back". Perhaps the West Wing's new doctrine might be summarized as "I put my thing down flip it and reverse it".
All this introspection leads to a U.S. take over of Khundu's airport and an ultimatum to the forces committing these atrocities. Bartlett's action is not only unilateral, it doesn't even appear to involve consultation with the State Department, much less allies or the U.N. This episode ends with several American soldiers taken hostage nine hourse before the deadline. It is part and parcel with his black ops assassination of a diplomat known to be helping terror groups.
The French take it in the neck in these two episodes. First, Zoe, the President's daughter, is dating a young Parisian, cast as a completely over-the-top elitist "Eurotrash" who insists on lecturing the President and everybody else on "what's wrong with me" (as Bartlett puts it). Second, just before the President is supposed to take the podium to support Sam's congressional campaign he is overheard calling the French "pansy hairdressers" when they refuse to let the U.S. fly over their airspace. Bartlett roams around the White House grousing at everyone, including the government representatives from Khundu, whom he chews out as if they were grade schoolers in the principle's office. This is a President that would have no time for the State Department or the U.N. As they say, a "Gaffe" is when a politician accidentally speaks the truth, and Bartlett is gaffe-a-minute in these episodes.
All this unilateralism and French-bashing leaves one wondering where the show's politics, so firmly Left in the past (er...so to speak), are moving? It seems to me the common underlying theme of this shows politics is that government can do anything with enough money. After all, the other theme winding through these episodes is the President's tax plan, which will "raise the top 1%'s taxes 1%". In the course of learning the evils of tax cuts we are reminded once again that the President is an economist, as if we didn't notice the big "E" emblazoned on his cape.
Now, does the character played by the fellow in the last photo here feel this way about Rwanda (clearly Khundu's model)? Or Does he only support U.S. intervention when genocide proceeds at a certain pace? We don't know. Martin Sheen,of course, is not an Economist, or a unilateralist president. He just plays one on TV.
I don't mind admitting I love the show. It's one of only two shows I Tivo regularly. I did, however, like Sports Night better.
I sorry, I just can't take Arianna Huffington seriously. A conservative gadfly turned anti-SUV crusader and liberal wannabe.
I remember her attempts to orchestrate her than husband's attempt to capture a U.S. Senate seat in California, only to fail miserably. Only to realize that her husband was gay, and dumped her soon after.
I'm surprised she has survived politically.
Posted by: Niraj on February 22, 2003 09:25 AMI wasn't aware that she had political ambitions. I thought the limit of her aspirations is to be read and admired by undercritical skimmers of her shortweighted pieces.
Posted by: Tom Roberts on February 22, 2003 09:30 AMArianna has always told us what she wants us to do. We just want Arianna to give up her big house, stop riding in private jets and only own one car, before she starts lecturing us again. I don't believe Arianna likes being lecure by the general public. Where is her sense of humour?
Posted by: Timmy the Wonder Dog on February 22, 2003 12:06 PMIMHO, she's simply a commentator out for some bucks and some celebrity. Remember that she started trending Green around 1998 -- in other words, she needs to be contrarian. She was a crazed conservative in the '90s (nothing wrong with that, of course -- I was/am too), but now she's Miss Environmentalist. Unless she comes up with some other cause to shill for, she'll drop off the radar and her 15 minutes will be up.
Besides, we all don't have $20,000 (gov't-subsidized, no less) to burn on an fancy Toyota Prius when we could get a Civic for $16,000.
It's the unfortunate price of our system (and one I'm willing to pay) that a person with enough money can get their message out , no matter how stupid.
Posted by: Klug on February 22, 2003 01:42 PMPeople who known her for a long time think she is extremely ambitious and that her then husband's political career was largely driven by that rather than any interest of his own. She has the dual problems of being a woman and of foreign birth in her onetime pursuit of the White House.
One hilarious column from her was an attempt to list all of Hillary Clinton's sins. Loathsome as Hillary may be the remarkable thing was that nearly every complaint could be directed toward Arianna herself.
A book with some interesting insight on Huffington is Peter McWilliams' 'Life 102: what to Do When Your Guru Sues You', detailing his experiences in a cult of which she was also a prominent member. McWilliams was a rather silly person himself but he makes a pretty good call of noting her as a power hungry chameleon who'll adopt any appearance to win points with whoever she thinks is the next big player.
Posted by: Eric Pobirs on February 22, 2003 04:20 PMOops. The above comment thread goes with the next post.
Posted by: "Mindles H. Dreck" on February 22, 2003 05:13 PMI loved Sports Night it was a great show. I can't figure out why I like the West Wing because I loathe its liberalism and its smugness but I like the show...its a mystery to me why, maybe I like the dialog for some reason or maybe I'm so sure it will become as risible as a lileks menu in 20 years that I'm enjoying ahead of time.
Posted by: Ward on February 22, 2003 09:25 PMI agree that Mssr. Bartlett, has really become much more unilateral of late, more like his other
characterizations from the Stephen King films;
paticularly Greg Stilson. If Nixon, had tried to
pull off the kind of pre-emption Bartlett, has tried against the Qumari Defense Minister (a prescient parallel to Prince Bandar) he'd be under
threat of impeachment, and OPEC would probably price oil at 40-50 dollars a barrel. Of course,
such actions contrast to betrayals of our allies
in Colombia, Taiwan, and even Israel (preceding
and subsequent to the act, mentioned above
Why do you watch that shite? Never seen it. Not a minute of it. LT Willard as POTUS? Sheen was even a sucky Willard.
Let it go,
-Dan
I only caught Sports Night a few times, but when I did, I loved it. Great stuff.
Mindles, did you know that the entire show is available on DVD? Amazon has it, as do other spots, I'm sure...
-NZB
Posted by: N.Z. Bear on February 23, 2003 10:21 AMYou know, I'm pretty sure that the line is, "I put my thang down, flip it and reverse it." Big difference.
Posted by: Ken Goldstein on February 23, 2003 05:29 PMSeeing as how Sorkin is on record with his disdain of Bush's intellect (and likely, his foreign policy and its method of application), these episodes may be him saying "This is what we should use force to do."
On the other hand, this could be Sorkin saying "This is what Clinton should have done."
Posted by: Klug on February 23, 2003 09:24 PMN.Z. Bear - I did know, thanks. It still runs on the Comedy Channel in the middle of the night, so I have seen all the episodes I missed thanks to my trusty Tivo.
Klug: Or this could be Sorkin saying "this is a doctrine that is only acceptable when adopted by Democrats". Or he could think it just makes good TV, I suppose.
Posted by: "Mindles H. Dreck" on February 23, 2003 09:32 PMI've never watched the show, but suddenly I'm getting a disturbing vision of Martin Sheen staggering around the Oval Office wearing nothing but a sheet, while The Doors' "The End" plays over the soundtrack.
Posted by: Andrea Harris on February 23, 2003 09:38 PMI'd be willing to give Sorkin the benefit of the doubt. We are led to believe that the show really bears his stamp of workmanship -- and the show has always been overly dramatic (1st season finale, anyone? I was screaming at my television on that one.) So, you're right, he's making what he thinks is good TV.
I read your post about the chess game episode; it's a pretty fair assessment. Peggy Noonan described the show as a liberal's wet dream. If this is true, it tells me that lefties (I use the term broadly) want/deep down desire a president that is can do everything and does do everything. It seems to be the fictional embodiment of the saying that the President "runs the country." Sometimes I think that people think that he's in a vast control room with 100 screens, levers, buttons and knobs that he must keep pushing and adjusting or we'll careen headlong into oblivion. "Hartsfield Landing" was the TV version of that fantasy.
Posted by: Klug on February 23, 2003 11:47 PMQuite. Quite right.
Willard was a Captain. Happy fingers. Brain not in gear. Thanks for fact-checking.
Posted by: Dan Dickinson on February 24, 2003 03:21 AMFor those who care, the "Inauguration" episodes of TWW are transparently the work of someone who has just finished reading A Problem From Hell, Samantha Power's book on the history of American response (or non-response) to genocide. The Power book is well worth reading and more coherent substantively than what was presented on TWW.
(That is unfair to TWW, which is a 44-minute TV show, not a 500-page book, but the show nevertheless went too far in sentimentalizing the issue.)
Posted by: alkali on February 24, 2003 04:18 PMI caught about five minutes of it last week and managed to catch the cell phone scene where the Pear said "tell those pansy hairdressers I am going to shove a loaf of bread up their ass" - a line which can only bolster attempts to boycott french products. *g*
There is something I've thought about though. Martin Sheen has gotten a lot of press for his prominence in the pro-dictatorship/pro-nuclear proliferation movement largely because of the stature he gained by playing the Pear every Wednesday night. Arguably if he didn't have this role, he'd still be an actor and an activist but probably not as prominent as he is right now.
I just find it interesting that his character is now fighting a war against a similar enemy and probably as a result, bolstering public support for the real POTUS who is preparing for war against a real threat over the objections of the real Martin Sheen.
Kind of funny in an ironic sort of way.
Posted by: Thorley Winston on February 24, 2003 05:36 PM"I just find it interesting that his character is now fighting a war against a similar enemy and probably as a result, bolstering public support for the real POTUS who is preparing for war against a real threat over the objections of the real Martin Sheen."
Well put. The old expression "stranger than true" comes to mind.
Posted by: "Mindles H. Dreck" on February 24, 2003 10:14 PMIsn't it also possible that the shows creators are not slavishly and completely controlled by the desire to put their 'wet dream' on the screen. Isn't it at least possivble that they are trying to create events that closely resemble the ones that are current right now?
As an aside, I think Bush would clearly have his desired mandate for war if Powell had been able to produce satellite photos of mass genocide or if they had simply presented a reasonable good argument and answered some of the more difficult questions.
"Bartlett's action is not only unilateral, it doesn't even appear to involve consultation with the State Department, much less allies or the U.N."
Not to mention Congress. So much for the Constitutional requirement that *Congress* declares war.
Sigh. It would be nice for the Left/West Wing to get a writer who understands and respects the Constitution.
Posted by: Mark Bahner on February 25, 2003 12:59 PMComments are Closed.