The President of the Left: No, he's not president. Martin Sheen only plays one on TV. But

National Review, March 24, 2003 by Andrew Stuttaford

If there is anyone more sanctimonious than The West Wing's Jed Bartlet, it's the moralizing old ham who plays him. But prissy, preachy Martin Sheen wasn't always this way. There were times, back in the depths of the wicked, whacked-out 1970s, when today's straitlaced star was a boozer, a three- packs-of-cigarettes-a-day man, and who knows what else. It was also the decade when he gave two of the greatest performances in the history of American cinema. As the restless, murderous Kit Carruthers, Sheen was an astonishingly convincing guide to the beauty, brutality, and strangeness of Terrence Malick's hypnotic Badlands. In Apocalypse Now, he took audiences on a different journey, this time deep into a heart of darkness so profound that it engulfed not only the character he portrayed but also, ultimately, Sheen himself.

The making of Apocalypse Now was -- like the war it described -- a chaotic, prolonged nightmare, with the tropical heat of its Philippines location only adding to the pressure on an actor "interiorly confused" and also busy partying far, far too hard. By the end of filming, Sheen had suffered a heart attack so severe that he was given last rites. But the "white light" that was, reportedly, a part of his near-death experience seems to have had an effect roughly equivalent to that more famous light seen on the road to Damascus. He cut back on the drink, reconnected with the Catholic Church, and, in the ominous words of a profile in the London Daily Telegraph, "took up politics." While his movie career seemed doomed never to regain its former heights (forget Damascus, the road from Apocalypse Now to Beverly Hills Brats can't have been easy), when it came to politics, Sheen shone.

He has opposed Star Wars (Pentagon, not George Lucas), excessive violence in movies (probably not George Lucas either), sanctions against Iraq, the proposed invasion of Iraq, and, a little belatedly, the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. He's campaigned for the homeless, pacifism, migrant workers, Bill Clinton (a "hero"), Janet Reno (also a "hero"), Al Gore (heroic status unclear), animal rights, and the environmentalist movement. Gerry Adams, the murkiest of Northern Ireland's politicians, was yet another "hero," although there was to be some subsequent (rather muddled) backtracking. The Contras were not heroes. They were "obscene assassins." Cop-killer Mumia, on the other hand, is an "incisive critic of our criminal-justice system" and a "voice for the voiceless" -- except, presumably, when they are murdered Philadelphia policemen.

His authority reinforced by the fact that he portrays a president on an upscale soap opera, Sheen uses celebrity status to push his causes (fair enough -- it's our fault, not his, if we take an actor seriously just because of the roles he plays). But "Jed Bartlet" has not been his only taste of office, either on screen (he has played other presidents and at least two Kennedy brothers) or off. In 1989, Sheen was named honorary mayor of Malibu. Naturally, His Honor marked his appointment with a decree proclaiming the area "a nuclear-free zone, a sanctuary for [illegal] aliens and the homeless, and a protected environment for all life, wild and tame." Interviewed more than a decade later by Hispanic magazine, Sheen relived the moment with obvious pleasure:

"The reaction was what I kind of half-expected, and it wasn't favorable. I was considered a radical who sold out the city. It just shows you the power of words and the power of someone's convictions. It just scared the hell out of them." Well, not really -- it just shows that people don't like having a loopy mayor. But no matter: If Sheen had become a St. Paul, the rest of us were, to him, like so many Galatians, an errant people to be hectored, lectured, and generally harangued.

And that's the best way to understand his politics -- as an extension of his deeply held religious beliefs. Sheen's political views may be wrongheaded, but, despite all the controversy, they are hardly that unusual. Yes, they show strong traces of what Sheen once referred to as the "radical way of the cross," a version of that 1960s Latin American "liberation theology" which in the end proved to be neither liberation nor theology (it's no surprise to discover that Sheen enjoyed a long friendship with those "activist" priests, the Berrigan brothers, both of them, you guessed it, "heroes"), but they are not so far removed from the more mainstream market-skeptical, leftish strain of thought often found within Catholicism. Even his vocal opposition to an invasion of Iraq (which has, most recently, included filming a commercial for Win Without War) looks less exceptional when seen in the light of the Vatican's obvious discomfort with the direction of U.S. policy in the region.

That said, so what? That Sheen's numerous crusades may have religious roots should not exempt them from criticism, nor should the fact that the actor is, by all accounts, "sincere." When it comes to an agenda like Sheen's, sincerity in and of itself is no defense.