I’m glad MoDo misses The West Wing as much as I do. Best part:
[T]he idea of American exceptionalism doesn’t extend to Americans being exceptional. If you excelled academically and are able to casually use 690 SAT words then you might as well have the press shoot video of you giving the finger to the Statue of Liberty while the Dixie Chicks sing the University of the Taliban fight song. The people who want English to be the official language of the United States are uncomfortable with their leaders being fluent in it.
And a close second:
GET ANGRIER! Call them liars, because that’s what they are. Sarah Palin didn’t say “thanks but no thanks” to the Bridge to Nowhere. She just said “Thanks.” You were raised by a single mother on food stamps — where does a guy with eight houses who was legacied into Annapolis get off calling you an elitist? And by the way, if you do nothing else, take that word back. Elite is a good word, it means well above average. I’d ask them what their problem is with excellence. While you’re at it, I want the word “patriot” back. McCain can say that the transcendent issue of our time is the spread of Islamic fanaticism or he can choose a running mate who doesn’t know the Bush doctrine from the Monroe Doctrine, but he can’t do both at the same time and call it patriotic. They have to lie — the truth isn’t their friend right now. Get angry. Mock them mercilessly; they’ve earned it. McCain decried agents of intolerance, then chose a running mate who had to ask if she was allowed to ban books from a public library. It’s not bad enough she thinks the planet Earth was created in six days 6,000 years ago complete with a man, a woman and a talking snake, she wants schools to teach the rest of our kids to deny geology, anthropology, archaeology and common sense too? It’s not bad enough she’s forcing her own daughter into a loveless marriage to a teenage hood, she wants the rest of us to guide our daughters in that direction too? It’s not enough that a woman shouldn’t have the right to choose, it should be the law of the land that she has to carry and deliver her rapist’s baby too? I don’t know whether or not Governor Palin has the tenacity of a pit bull, but I know for sure she’s got the qualifications of one. And you’re worried about seeming angry? You could eat their lunch, make them cry and tell their mamas about it and God himself would call it restrained. There are times when you are simply required to be impolite. There are times when condescension is called for!
Does anyone else miss President Bartlet?
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Wow. Maybe there’s hope for Ms. Dowd after all
Sorkin wrote this, if I’m reading Dowd’s introduction right.
Yeah, Sorkin wrote it. But good on MoDo for asking him to do it.
It just so happens that I’m re-watching the entire series of West Wing right now (currently on Season 3, around episode 7) and do I ever wish President Bartlett was real! His staff is so non-corrupt and really trying to change things for the better too. And CJ is one of my favorite feminist characters of all time (Abby too, for that matter) I wish they had done a spinoff with President Santos, so the show and some of the staff could have lived on!
I was so sad when this show ended! I live north of the border and enjoyed a nice little delusion… in my delusion there was no Bush and Bartlett was really president. :)
I’m watching the entire series from start to finish during the months running up to the election. I’m on the second disk of season four right now, Bartlet’s running for re-election. I’ll watch Santos (Jimmy Smits) take the oath of office the night before election day and hope it sends some good mojo out into the universe for BO, who was, after all, the inspiration for Santos’ character on West Wing.
Love Srokin’s take here, and hope Obama has given it a read.
Every day, Jill. Every day. My partner bought me the box set for my birthday. We put in a couple of discs when we need to escape from political reality.
my family have been watching the entire series on the DVDs, and commenting how closely the Santos campaign has been a mirror in some ways for the Obama campaign.
I also felt that there were so many storylines that could have been developed (I want to know what happened with CJ Cregg’s road building in Africa, for example!)
“It’s not bad enough she thinks the planet Earth was created in six days 6,000 years ago complete with a man, a woman and a talking snake, she wants schools to teach the rest of our kids to deny geology, anthropology, archaeology and common sense too?”
From Factcheck.org:
# Palin has not pushed for teaching creationism in Alaska’s schools. She has said that students should be allowed to “debate both sides” of the evolution question, but she also said creationism “doesn’t have to be part of the curriculum.”
“It’s not bad enough she’s forcing her own daughter into a loveless marriage to a teenage hood, she wants the rest of us to guide our daughters in that direction too?”
We can’t really know the extent to which Palin is “forcing” her daughter to do anything, nor the extent to which her daughter’s marriage is “loveless.”
There’s plenty wrong with Sarah Palin. We don’t need to lapse into the untrue and unverifiable in order to hammer that home.
There is no debate. Claiming that students should be allowed to “debate both sides” has the same effect as teaching creationism in schools, because there is no other side. The idea that creationism should even be mentioned in a science class is ridiculous. It legitimizes religion’s usurpation of the role of science. So yes, she does favor allowing religion into science classes, and that’s disgusting.
I absolutely miss President Bartlet. And can we bring back Josh Lyman, too?! Mmmm, Josh…
Yes, ma’am, I miss President Bartlett. I actually bawled my way through the series finale and still mourn every time I see a former West Winger in any other series. Matt Santos would’ve made a wonderful president.
Josh Lemon Lyman.
Donna for President. Charlie for VP!
I miss West Wing so much. It was such a sweet-bitter-sweet thing to be watching Bartlett and Bush at the same time (although I am still not over the time I switched channels in the middle of an episode, and the Sheen was a guest star on Two and a Half Men, and I flipped back and forth, back and forth, Bartlett, idiot in dressing gown, Bartlett, idito in dressing gown…)
I am also DAMN PROUD of being an elitist. I think it’s something everyone should aspire to. Drag people up, not down – I get that some people are proud of what/who/where they are because that’s what they have. But I’d like areason, thankyouverymuch.
Let Obama be Obama? =O