A few weeks ago, Bravo’s rerunning of The West Wing made it back around to the series’ beginning, so I happily queued up the TiVo and have since been enjoying the idealism, sincerity and optimism of the Bartlet White House.
On most issues I’m about the farthest thing you’ll find from a Democrat (short of the boards at Free Republic), but I wouldn’t mind if we had a Bartlet presidency. Because for all that we disagree on the handling of certain issues I do admire people who take America seriously.
It has dawned on me in the last few months that so few of our headlining politicians DO take America seriously any longer. It seems they all view politics not as a chance to do some legitimate Public Service but as a chance to be In Charge. And while I didn’t vote for Obama (we all know I didn’t vote for anybody this time around) I will say that at least his speechwriters are touching on that love of America which seems to have been lost. That dream of freedom, the dream of all of us individuals working together to make the world a better place. While we disagree on what the government should do about the world, I think we’re all better off if we believe in what we’re doing here.
I certainly hope that Obama bears out the promise of his speechwriters, because I sure wouldn’t mind getting us back to the place where America is a dream of hope born in the minds of free people and not just a cash cow for an oligarchy.
I really wish that politicians’ behavior reflected their words. Nowadays, if a politician says something flowery or particularly erudite, he/she gets praised or rewarded with votes, regardless of the fact that their behavior later doesn’t reflect what they said (what their speechwriter wrote). It’s become very transparently manipulative, and the wonder is that we as a nation don’t shame them for it.
The reason Obama can’t be our Bartlet is that The West Wing was so completely unrealistic about the way politics works. In the show, Bartlet would give a speech and Congress would be moved to do something, or an individual politician would change a position, or a foreign leader would take a step towards a diplomatic breakthrough. Meanwhile, back in the real political world, Obama gives speeches that move (many of) us the voters, but Congress doesn’t respond to presidential speeches: Congress responds to individual back-and-forth and to horse trading. (That’s not a complaint; that’s what our Constitution set Congress up to be, mainly, and it’s proper that it works that way.) Now, I have hope that Obama and his staff can get that part of things done as well, and if they do, I think that the stuff he gets done will (largely) come from that place of the dream of a good America. But caring and speeches alone won’t do much.
NM, I’m wondering if you watched the show. I found it to be incredibly realistic. Lawrence O’Donnell and Dee Dee Myers were consultants and writers for the shoe, and on the DVDs, there are some great interviews of everyone.
Anyway, kat, if you’d like, I have Seasons 1-3 on DVD, its fun to watch them. I’m happy to loan them to you indefinitely, since I have all 7 seasons on a collector’s edition. John Lamb has already borrowed them and he is finished.
Yeah, Mack, watched it, loved it, found it unrealistic. Not about how the president and his staff interact, about which I know nothing, but about the more public political aspects. Dee Dee Myers may have felt as beleaguered as CJ most of the time, but the effects of her statements wasn’t usually the same.
Well, it just goes to show ya. i thought the interaction was the least believable part. Some of my friends on the hill have told me how “on the money” that show was. Perspective, i guess.
Oh, I’m not saying I found the interactions believable, or unbelievable — I don’t know anything about how they really go. But isn’t it wonderful to think that when no one’s around, Obama and Rahm Emmanuel or whoever are talking in Sorkin dialogue?
[...] for Obama’s recent decisions, I agree with Kat Coble on this one who writes this morning this: I certainly hope that Obama bears out the promise of his speechwriters, because I sure wouldn’t [...]