[Revolting cat!]

Well, I'm convinced that this show was conceived in the first place to create for the sheeple, and especially for the RAT faithfull, the illusion that all was well at the White House, and that the POTUS was a noble, saintly man and not some halfwitted, smooth talking hillbilly exhibiting an advanced case of satyriasis. I believe the conceit worked, if only because the relationship most people have with the POTUS persona is via television, that is a relationship with a more or less manipulated image, which could very well be fictionalized.

[Revolting cat!]

CONCLUSION TO ABOVE:

One way or another (the real POTUS or Martin Sheen), the television image is never real, and the show created for its audience a perfect mental substitute for a rather unpleasant reality. Turn off the news, watch President Bartlett, and go to bed thinking everything is copacetic in the country.