A play ought to be a just and lively image of human nature, representing its passions and humors, and the changes of fortune to which it is subject, for the delight and instruction of mankind.
                                                               John Dryden, 1663


The political drama television series, The West Wing, first aired in September 1999 and ran for seven seasons until May 2006. Unable to watch most  episodes, I did see enough of them to know that I was missing something special.


Among the occasional benefits and/or detriments of the pandemic epidemic has been the opportunity/necessity to watch more television. With the closure of movie theaters, which I love, more time is being spent in front of my 50” screen, particularly watching old films on TCM and new films on Amazon and Netflix. A few weeks ago I discovered the complete The West Wing series on Netflix and, generally starting about 9 or 10 PM most nights, I began steadily watching my way through its 7 seasons and more than 150 episodes.


Immigration, education, budgets, the Federal deficit, trade agreements, presidential appointments, presidential pardons, possible war with North Korea, Iran, China and Russia, White House leaks, the murder by the police of a young Black man, gun control, gays in the military, nuclear test bans, global trade, white supremacists, campaign contributions, sentencing for drug users, terrorism, scandals, an ill President … these and other topics we have heard so much about in the last few years are brilliantly depicted and debated in this ground-breaking and absorbing television series. Indeed, it was striking and often startling to realize that many of the episodes could be shown today without requiring editing to make them timely.

A special, somewhat out-of-sequence, remarkable episode entitled “Isaac and Ishmael,” opened the third season in response to the 9/11 tragedy as an attempt to forestall anti-Muslim hatred. Another episode that same season, “Documentary Special,” was devoted to explaining the roles of the various White House staffers, with cameo appearances from the people who actually filled those roles, including Presidents Ford, Carter and Clinton, as well as former press secretaries, presidential advisers, speechwriters and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

To say I became addicted to the show would be a gross understatement. After now having seen every episode, I find The West Wing hard to get out of my mind, especially since each day brings even more evidence of the ignorance, incompetence and treasonous behaviors from the current occupants of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Trying to block the orderly transfer of power is only the most recent, and perhaps most egregious, example. Aren’t the many sycophants/stooges, including Pompeo, Lindsey Graham, Cruz, Rubio and a too-long list of others, complicit?

Even in the best of circumstances there is, of course, a difference between the White House staff led by the fictional President Jed Bartlet and the real White House. However, the contrast has never been as stark is it is with the current occupant of the Oval Office: honesty, morality, honor, decency and tolerance were the constant goals of that imagined administration 20 years ago reflected both in the behavior of President Bartlet as well as in those directly advising him, particularly Leo McGarry (John Spencer), his chief of staff, who reflected the qualities of his boss just as the trail of recent Chiefs of Staff have reflected the lack of qualities of theirs.


Honesty, morality, honor, decency and tolerance. Who, other than someone trapped in delusions, would think of those words when considering the White House of the past four years?


During the waning days of the 2020 campaign, when my anxiety increased logarithmically (I never believed the overly optimistic polls and was not at all confident Joe Biden would be our next President until the Associated Press told me it was so), and before it became clear our long national nightmare was ending, The West Wing episodes provided steady inspiration and hope for a better America. I am grateful for the solace I found in this highly timely, extraordinarily well written, superbly acted drama. Years ago, I was gifted with a complete set of the DVDs of The West Wing but, somehow, never set aside the time to watch them. In a perverse way I suppose COVID is responsible for my enjoying the series now. As I write this essay while the sick man in the Oval Office rants and raves his nonsense and adds to his approaching-infinity list of lies, I recommend to you this taste of what our national experience should be. The West Wing is informative, entertaining and, in its celebration of honorable behavior, rouses us to listen to our “better angels.” 

Theater is a great boulevard enabling our escape from the realities of life while teaching us how to better manage those truths.

Of course, along with most of the people reading this commentary, I will remain deeply troubled by the fact that almost half of the people voting seem to have little regard and even less understanding for the nature of our democracy and, especially, lack comprehension of what a President of the United States should be and how he or she should behave. I have long believed that the single most important role for the occupant of the Oval Office is to inspire the American people to do the most good for the most people, most of the time. That is certainly the underlying message of The West Wing.


I was privileged to cast my first presidential vote for John F. Kennedy in 1960. As Marc Antony told us, in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, “… the evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones …” So it has been for JFK. There has been a steady, unrelenting effort to diminish his many contributions. Hardly ever mentioned, while recounting his all-too-human failings, is that he inspired us all to strive for a better America and a better world. His message of ‘ask what you can do for your country’ is far removed from the constant drone of self-interest we have been forced to listen to in the past four years.


Although Aaron Sorkin, the creator of The West Wing, was born a few months after President Kennedy’s inauguration, it is not difficult to see the similarities between his Jed Bartlet and our John Kennedy: both New Englanders, both relatively young when elected, both handsome, both graduates of elite colleges, both extremely well-read and fond of quoting poetry, both highly articulate and both married to highly attractive and accomplished women (Bartlet’s wife, Abby, is a surgeon). Distressingly, and painfully reminiscent of November 22, 1963, there is an assassination attempt which made many of us think back to that horrible day although, in this story, Bartlet is not the target of the shooting which, in the fictional world, was fortunately unsuccessful .It was actually the President’s aide, Charlie Young, a young, Black man, who was being fired on by white nationalists because he dated a white woman, the President’s daughter.

Martin Sheen, the fine actor portraying President Bartlet, has said that he considered his character to be an amalgam of JFK, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.

The West Wing is consistently ranked among the best television shows of all time. The Writers Guild of America ranked it as one of the best-written TV series. It received 26 Primetime Emmy Awards, including the award for Outstanding Drama Series four consecutive times, from 2000-2003. Three Golden Globe Awards, two Screen Actors Guild Awards and two Peabody Awards (particularly prestigious) are also among the multitude of awards it has received, although its popularity began waning slightly when Aaron Sorkin left the production team after the fourth season.


The ensemble cast included some of the best actors of our time, only some of whom were well known before The West Wing and many of whom received nominations for, or won, acting Emmys: Martin Sheen, John Spencer, Bradley Whitford, Richard Schiff, Rob Lowe, Allison Janney, Dulé Hill, Stockard Channing, Alan Alda, Jimmy Smits, Kristin Chenoweth, just to name a few. The list of guest performers is equally stellar: John Goodman, Glenn Close, Karl Malden, Marlee Matlin, James, Cromwell and Roger Rees, among many others. Martin Sheen’s portrayal of President Bartlet could well serve as the model for what “presidential” means.

The importance of The West Wing for me is the message it delivered in almost every episode: honesty, morality, honor, decency and tolerance.

I have always thought of myself as a liberal with a capital L, influenced by the Democrat Presidents that have occupied the White House in my life time: Roosevelt, Truman, Johnson, Carter, Clinton and Obama as well as many others in government. I don’t understand the idea that government should be small. We are a very large country and the states are not united in the ability to guarantee safety, high levels of education, quality highways, and a myriad of other necessities that require large government. Over the years, I have observed Republicans I could respect and admire (but fewer and fewer in recent years). I have always felt that the occupant of the White House should be respected, even when I didn’t like him or his policies (e.g. Reagan, Bush 1 and 2), recognizing that, in our system of government, philosophies change with the times and some good is always mixed with the bad. The leaders of the Republican party of today are mostly reprehensible, evidence of which can be found by looking at the increasingly long list of those who have left the party. As example, The Lincoln Project, which created some of the most memorable and effective campaign ads of 2020, was created and is directed by intelligent and thoughtful conservative Republicans, who can no longer tolerate the current administration.

Today, President-elect Biden introduced some of the most important members of his cabinet. His remarks, the remarks of each of the nominees, and the closing remarks of VP-elect Harris, let me believe, for the first time in almost four years, that the nation is secure, the Constitution is safe, and that justice and liberty and decency will prevail. Watch the conference here:

https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/elections/100000007471259/biden-cabinet-live-video.html?fbclid=IwAR1TphYz9Zi132p4fEh0KU1A1eiEMQBby_wf7Q9jSU6262J2C_Ihjxjb3dI

Someone, with a twisted sense of humor, put my name on some list that leads to my receiving mail from the GOP and from many despicable organizations, such as the Heritage Society. Everytime I receive one of those letters I am embarrassed at the thought that one of my neighbors may have seen it. I’m even ashamed when I consider that the mailman might think of me as sympathetic to those organizations. Whatever kindly thoughts I have had about Republicans have been poisoned by those who still stand by the actions and behavior of the past four, terrible years.


It’s not fair to be so one-sided, you might be thinking.


Some of the last episodes of The West Wing, aired in 2005 (when George W Bush, a decent and honorable, but hopelessly inept, leader was still President), and dealing with the campaign for the successor to President Bartlet. Arnold Vinick, played by Alan Alda, a Republican candidate who was bright, capable, decent and honorable, was opposed by the young Democrat, Matt Santos, also a highly admirable character, played by Jimmy Smits. In one of their debates (compare these debates with the 2020 embarrassments), with the script written by the distinguished newsman Lawrence O’Donnell, Santos is challenged and replies, slightly paraphrased here:


Vinick: “What did liberals do that was so offensive to the Republican Party?”


          Santos: “I’ll tell you what they did. Liberals got women the right to vote. Liberals got African-Americans the right to vote. Liberals created Social Security and lifted millions of elderly people out of poverty. Liberals ended segregation. Liberals passed the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act. Liberals created Medicare. Liberals passed the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act.” [I would add that Liberals ended the Great Depression, revitalized the almost bankrupt nation in the 1930s, ended the almost as great depression of the Bush era, Liberals steadfastly support Science, Education and the Arts, Liberals mobilized the nation and the world to fight Hitler, Liberals ended the Vietnam war, Liberals are in the forefront of controlling the deleterious effects of climate change, and on and on …]

Vinick: “What did Republicans do?”

          Santos: “They opposed every one of those programs, every one. So when you try to hurl that word ‘liberal’ at my feet, as if it were something dirty, something to run away from, something that I should be ashamed of, it won’t work … because I will pick up that label and I will wear it as a badge of honor.”

 

Finally, a few fantasies of what I would do if I had the power:
     1. Distribute a copy of the Constitution to every household in the nation and to every student, from elementary school to graduate school.
     2. Have President Obama deliver a series of television broadcasts explaining the Constitution of the United States, with at least one episode devoted to each of Articles I to 7, and at multiple episodes devoted to the 26 Amendments .
     3. Provide the complete The West Wing series to everyone who now works, or aspires to work, in government, and also to every middle and high school, simultaneously offering some incentive to their teachers to encourage viewing of the series.