Posted on 02/24/2002 7:50:56 AM PST by RippleFire
XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX SUN FEB 24, 2002 11:37:09 ET XXXXX
WEST WING SORKIN BLASTS BUSH: WE'RE 'PRETENDING' HE HAS EXHIBITED UNSPEAKABLE COURAGE
The force behind NBC's WEST WING is blasting off against the real West Wing in upcoming pages of the NEW YORKER, which names Aaron Sorkin "the country's loyal opposition."
NY'ER reporter Tad Friend has penned a high-impact Talk of the Town set for release in March 4 editions.
Sorkin, the creatorproducerwriter of WEST WING, tells Friend: "It's absolutely right that at this time we're all laying off the [Bush] bubblehead jokes. But that's a far cry from what the Times and CNN and others on whom we rely for unvarnished objectivity are telling us, which is that 'My God! On September 12th he woke up as Teddy Roosevelt! He became the Rough Rider!'"
Of NBC's own look at a day in the life of the Presidency, 'The Bush White House: Inside the Real West Wing,' which aired as the lead-in to a WEST WING repeat a few weeks ago, Sorkin charges: "The White House pumped up the President's schedule to show him being much busier and more engaged than he is, and Tom Brokaw let it happen?"
Sorkin continues: "The show was a valentine to Bush. That illusion may be what we need right now, but the truth is we're simply pretending to believe that Bush exhibited unspeakable courage at the World Series by throwing out the first pitch at Yankee Stadium, or that he, by God, showed those terrorists by going to Salt Lake City and jumbling the first line of the Olympic opening ceremony.
"The media is waving pom-poms, and the entire country is being polite," Sorkin declares.
"I just began reading Frank Bruni's campaign book AMBLING INTO HISTORY: THE UNLIKELY ODYSSEY OF GEORGE W. BUSH which begins with Candidate Bush at a service in Texas for seven people who were killed in a church by a crazy gunman. Bruni describes Bush making goofy faces at the press, and it reminds you of a junior high schooler on a museum field trip."
Sorkin tells the mag that he is planning to revisit the BUSH-GORE Florida showdown in an upcoming episode.
President Josiah Bartlet [played by actor Martin Sheen, who has called Bush a white knuckled drunk] 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 says.
"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.' And so to an extent we're going to rerun the last election and try a few different plays than the Gore campaign did."
Developing...
You tell me. You are the resident expert on FR of "voices in the head", IMHO.
Now President Bush and the rest of us must look to the Al Qaeda hold that appears to be on American soil, aided and abetted by our laws that protect the crime and not the victim.
By the way, apparently our military at GITMO live in "inhumane" housing...where are the bleeding hearts and human rights people on this????
You can't be serious and use the everybody does it argument. Why sully the characters of these men, on assumptions? Just to make Clinton look good. In our time, we've seen the scummish behaviour of Clinton and I would not want my boys to grow to immitate men late Clinton.
"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.' And so to an extent we're going to rerun the last election and try a few different plays than the Gore campaign did."
Dickheadsayswhat?
Is it defined as so much courage we're afraid to speak of it? Then why is he able to speak of it, in complaining that Brokaw et al are speaking of it? Lotta speech happening here for something unspeakable.
It can't be to be silent in the face of an atrocity- The (Real) President has repeatedly called the perpetrators "evil."
I think Sorkin's "pretending" to have writing skills, myself.
Since I spent a year stationed at GTMO, I want part of that victim action. :-)
GTMO was fine. Now that it's winter up here in the cold, grey Pacific Northwest, I wouldn't mind recall to active duty for 6 weeks of TAD orders to GTMO right now.
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