West Wing Launches New Season with More Liberal Advocacy (NBC's Campaign Contribution To Demmycrats)

Media Research Center ^ | September 26, 2002 | Brent Baker

[PJ-Comix]

Just six weeks or so before a real mid-term election, NBC’s The West Wing returned to the air Wednesday night with its fictional “President Bartlet” campaigning for re-election six weeks before a presidential vote. West Wing creator/writer Aaron Sorkin who has Bartlet, played by Martin Sheen, facing off against a dumb Republican Governor from the South, used NBC’s prime time to advance the liberal agenda.

     The September 25 episode opened with a campaign rally set at an Indiana farm. Bartlet proclaimed: “We need to find energy alternatives....The Republicans are busy. They’re trying to convince us that they care about new energy and that they’re not in the chest pockets of Big Oil. And that’s a tough sell.”

     Later in the two-hour season premiere, in a scene set in the Oval Office, Bartlet lectured his Commerce Secretary about a global warming treaty: “I think what’s lunacy is a nation of SUVs telling a nation of bicycles that they have to change the way they live before we’ll agree to do something about greenhouse emissions.”

     The season premiere opened with the crowd on an Indiana farm chanting “four more years!”

     Sheen, as President Bartlet, related a joke he subsequently used to slam Republicans: “You know the story about the guy whose car gets stuck in a muddy hole. Farmer comes along and says he’ll pull the car out of the mud, but he’s going to have to charge fifty bucks because this is the tenth time he’s had to pull it out of the mud today. The driver says, 'God, when do you have time to plow your land? At night?’ The farmer says 'no, no,’ night time is when I fill the hole with water.”
     “We need to find energy alternatives. We’re getting our cue [cue? Hard to understand what he said], we’re getting it right now. The Republicans are busy. They’re trying to convince us that they care about new energy and that they’re not in the chest pockets of Big Oil. And that’s a tough sell. I don’t envy them because their only hope is that we don’t notice that they’re the ones who are filling the hole with water every night. And I think Americans are smarter than that. I think we noticed.”
     “This isn’t a time for people whose doomsday scenario is a little less at the pump for Texaco and Shell. This isn’t a time for people who say there aren’t any energy alternatives just because they can’t think of any. This is a time for American heroes and we reach for the stars.”

     A very nice in-kind contribution from NBC to liberal Democrats, the very kind of political promotion that the media will still be able to advance under “campaign finance reform.”

     Later, in a scene set in the Oval Office, Bartlet’s Secretary of Commerce warned him about a global warming treaty’s impact on the United States: “It is shear lunacy to suggest America take unilateral steps while exempting 80 percent of the world’s nations from the same obligations.”
     Bartlet shot back: “Developing nations. And I think what’s lunacy is a nation of SUVs telling a nation of bicycles that they have to change the way they live before we’ll agree to do something about greenhouse emissions.”

     In an interview with the New Yorker in March, even as he claimed The West Wing is “non-political,” Sorkin boasted of how he would use the program to re-play the 2000 campaign. The New Yorker’s Tad Friend wrote:
     “President Josiah Bartlet is up for re-election this November. 'Bartlet is going to be running against Governor Robert Ritchie, of Florida, who's not the sharpest tool in the box but who's raised a lot of money and is very popular with the Republican Party,’ Sorkin said. If this sounds familiar, it should. 'It was frustrating watching Gore try so hard not to appear smart in the debates -- why not just say 'Here's my fucking résumé, what do you got?' We're a completely fictional, nonpolitical show, but one of our motors is doing our version of the old Mad magazine 'Scenes We'd Like to See.'”

     As recounted in the April 3 CyberAlert, on the March 27 episode President Bartlet took a shot at Sorkin’s stand-in for George W. Bush: “Governor Robert Ritchie” of Florida, the Republican presidential candidate. After an interview with the fictional Philadelphia station ends, but while still live with the anchor, President Bartlet is asked about Ritchie’s book in which he advocates drilling in ANWR. Bartlet replied: “I think we might be talking about a .22 caliber mind in a .357 caliber world.”

     That episode also featured a lot of liberal environmental advocacy. For details: http://www.mediaresearch.org/cyberalerts/2002/cyb20020403.asp#6

     As for the show being “non-political,” the March 6 CyberAlert contained a rundown from past CyberAlerts of liberal pronouncements and advocacy promoted on The West Wing over the show’s first three years. For links to fuller CyberAlert articles, some of which feature RealPlayer clips of the scenes: http://www.mediaresearch.org/cyberalerts/2002/cyb20020306.asp#4

4

[texas slim]

I don't know why anyone else watches "Left Wing" but
I quit watching two years ago. That was when I realized that it was little more than a socialist wet dream starring a screaming liberal, written by a hack writer, Aaron
Sorkin, who obviously gets his weekly story lines from
the Progressive Caucus!

[ThinkDifferent]

I remember the emphasis on "just" but at the same time I thought the protest made more sense from a feminzai point of view(get out the 'shackles" of housewifery and such).

I've consulted with my friend who recommended it and watches it religiously, and she says the protest was because the first lady made being a wife and mother sound demeaning. You're right that it doesn't make much sense, but we're dealing with Sorkin's caricatures of conservatives here.

[colorado tanker]

Aaron Sorkin. Yikes!

It is fun to fantasize about writing that show - from a conservative perspective.

[amused]

I've consulted with my friend who recommended it and watches it religiously, and she says the protest was because the first lady made being a wife and mother sound demeaning. You're right that it doesn't make much sense, but we're dealing with Sorkin's caricatures of conservatives here.

Good point.

[Wolfstar]

I am proud to say that I have never watched an entire episode of The West Wing. I watched a fraction of the one they aired immediately after 9/11 last year, got disgusted with the preaching, and turned it off. That was the extent of my exposure to this obvious propaganda tool of Hollyweird's limousine liberals.

Last night Jay Leno did one of his often hilarious "Jay Walk" segments. He asked some guy who looked 30-something this question: "What year did the Civil War end." "Dunno," said the guy, "Was it '74 or '75?" Leno laughed and asked, "Do you mean 1974?" And the guy said yes!!!! I kid you not. The thing we all need to understand is that the dim-bulbs Jay finds on his "Jay Walk" segments are not unique. There are tens of millions of them out there, and many of them probably think "President Bartlett" really is the President of the United States. Unfortunately, too many of these twits vote.

[united1000]

Actually that was more during the 500 Race, not the Brickyard, it's not heard as much anymore since the changes were made at the track which eliminated the infield crowd ......... but before that....... it was a tradition to hear "SHOW ME YOUR T*TS!!!" - but it went along with the other stuff that used to go on in the infield. We would be watching the race with my boys, young teens then, and their binocs were focused everywhere but on the race!

[goldstategop]

People like West Wing because its believable drama. And liberals can write good drama. The show's politics are entirely different subject and I don't know of any one who watches it for its liberal political content. In the real world we don't have a President Bartlet cause liberal ideas aren't all that terribly popular. The fact the show has to have an Ann Coulter inspired bimbette working in a liberal White House should tell you liberals don't have confidence in their own cause enough to do without having to do a "reality check" with someone from the other side. Then too, President Bartlet doesn't have a Congress controlled by his own party. Go figure.

[united1000]

Last night Jay Leno did one of his often hilarious "Jay Walk" segments. He asked some guy who looked 30-something this question: "What year did the Civil War end." "Dunno," said the guy, "Was it '74 or '75?" Leno laughed and asked, "Do you mean 1974?" And the guy said yes!!!! I kid you not. The thing we all need to understand is that the dim-bulbs Jay finds on his "Jay Walk" segments are not unique. There are tens of millions of them out there, and many of them probably think "President Bartlett" really is the President of the United States. Unfortunately, too many of these twits vote.

 

I agree with you 100%

[larryjohnson]

I like all the characters except the pres. They diminish him and his academic snobbishness.

[Wolfstar]

On the first "Jay Walk" segment I ever saw, Leno asked a bunch of dimwits what state the KENTUCKY Derby was run in, and none of them knew. That was when I realized people like those on FR who go out of their way to inform themselves about a wide range of subjects actually are a very small minority of the population. It's worth bearing this in mind when assessing poll results, by the way.

[SES1066]

"If only -- sniff, sniff -- if only Martin Sheen really was president".

We had a bout of President Bartlet down here in Florida campaigning for the wretched Reno during the Dim-wit-rat Primary. He spent his entire time fulminating against the Bush brothers who were obviously the sources of all evil in the US, if not the world. One wonders how he can remember his lines with such a vacum between the ears!

[PJ-Comix]

People like West Wing because its believable drama.

It's believable that White House staffers talk so rapidly that they sound like they are ingesting Magic Mushrooms?

[Clinging Bitterly]

From time to time, I see talk here on FR of this show, what folks saw, how it made them want to barf, and so on.

I have never watched this show. I have not seen one second of one episode - ever.

Heard on the "news" the other night that it has won another Emmy. I didn't watch the Emmy show itself, I am no afficionado of pop culture, or whatever it's supposed to be, and I certainly don't need a TV show to tell me what TV shows to like, and I really don't need the "news" to tell me that either.

Even before this show came to the air, I considered Martin Sheen a poison and I will admit I prejudged it.

But it's worse than I thought - just reading this rundown got me almost blowing chunks.

Dave in Eugene

[PJ-Comix]

I am no afficionado of pop culture, or whatever it's supposed to be...

You should check out The Simpsons. It's my fav!

[dpa5923]

You are right.

I am in constant shock when I discuss political issues with left-leaning "friends". They will spout a party line or some sound bite they heard on the news, but when I explain what actually happened or provide historical examples they look at me and will say "I didn't know about that" or "that's the first I heard of that".

Now, if I was talking about obscure events, maybe I would cut them some slack, but these self proclaimed political savvy people don't know about Hillary and her secret health care meetings, don't know about the Buddhist Monks and the campaign money exchanging hands, didn't even know about Dassholes little temper tantrum on the senate floor or if they did, don't even know Dasshole misquote the President.

And these people vote.

[BADROTOFINGER]

'It was frustrating watching Gore try so hard not to appear smart in the debates

Either he really isnt smart or he was lying. Neither is attractive to human beings, much less American voters...JFK

[PBRSTREETGANG]

I guarantee you the blonde White House Chick would have been constantly greeted with yells of "SHOW ME YOUR T*TS!!!"

Then I guess Indiana should be happy with the way the show portrayed them.

[garden variety]

"I have never watched this show. I have not seen one second of one episode - ever."

I'm with you, brother. I have more than enough to keep me sufficiently entertained in the real world. Most of the time these days I don't have time to waste on the pretend world.

[ofMagog]

... "President Bartlett" really is the President of the United States.

Well, I'm voting for Ritchie.

[Wolfstar]

LOL!!!! Good one.