The West Wing Is Not a Wet Dream. - television program review

Progressive, The, May, 2000 by Fred McKissack

The response by conservatives to NBC's The West Wing (Wednesday, 9 P.M. Eastern) is so comical that I almost feel compelled to defend the show. The Weekly Standard ran a cover story calling it "Left Wing," and John Leo of U.S. News & World Report piled on with another rant about liberal Hollywood.

For those who haven't seen it, The West Wing is a drama about the White House from writer-producer Aaron Sorkin, who also produces Sports Night for ABC. Martin Sheen stars as President Josiah Bartlet, a charming and brilliant New Hampshire Democrat.

Bartlet, as played by Sheen, is about as "Presidential" a President as Americans have seen since Kennedy. While witty, he can be arrogant and pigheaded. He's a good father and husband, but Ozzie Nelson he ain't. He is, as the right claims, a bimboless Bill Clinton.

Here's the deal: For all the yammering about how the show is a leftist's wet dream, it falls dismally short. Let's take the episode "A Proportional Response," where Bartlet has to make a decision about bombing Syria for the downing of an American military transport. The plane carried Bartlet's private physician, along with the doctor's wife and children. After being told of possible "proportional" responses (including the bombing of a Syrian intelligence agency) by the members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Bartlet howls about the "disproportional" response: "Let the word go forth, from this time and this place, gentlemen, you kill an American, any American, we don't come back with a proportional response. We come back with total disaster." Geez, that sounds very Reaganesque to me.

In the end, Bartlet goes Clinton and destroys two ammo dumps and a building housing the aforementioned Syrian intelligence agency. Yes, very pragmatic, but how freaking lefty is it to bomb the Syrians, anyway? That's all we need: Another Hollywood production demonizing an Arab nation.

And while I'm at it, where are all the minorities in the Bartlet White House? In this particular episode, John Amos, who is black, plays the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral Fitzwallace. The navy doctor was black. And the President's new nineteen-year-old aide is a black guy whose mother, a police officer, died in the line of duty.

Yet the main characters--the decisionmakers in this Hollywood America--are all white. If this is the best a real live lefty President can muster on the diversity front, it is pretty damn pathetic.

Part of the right's animus toward the show has nothing to do with its content and all to do with Sorkin and Sheen. In real life, Sheen has been a supporter of good causes and manages to get arrested on a regular basis for protesting against nuclear weapons and the School of the Americas. So he's already suspect.

Sorkin and Sheen teamed up together for the 1995 film The American President, where Michael Douglas played President Andrew Shepherd, a Democrat who gets sweet on Annette Bening's character, a lobbyist for a liberal environmental group. Sheen played the President's best friend and chief of staff. Sorkin, the film's writer, penned one of the best speeches in recent cinematic history for Douglas: "Yes, I am a card carrying member of the ACLU," President Shepherd says, and proceeds to proudly defend the organization.

Like Shepherd, Bartlet's a good guy, but he's no Bob La Follette. Hell, he's not even Paul Wellstone. The West Wing is great entertainment, and Rob Lowe, who plays the wily Deputy Communications Director Sam Seaborn, has never looked or acted better. But let's drop the pretense that this is somehow a pro-lefty, commie-lovin' roll-a-doobie.

Note:

* My attempts at convincing the editors to put out a baseball preview issue has, once again, fallen on deaf ears. So, quickly, my predictions. National League: Cardinals, Reds, Braves and Diamondbacks. American League: Yankees, Indians, Mariners, Rangers. The World Series: In my dreams, it's the Cardinals downing the Indians in seven games.

Fred McKissack is a writer based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.