“What the Hell Are You Doing Here?”

This beautiful clip from a February 2000 episode of The West Wing, “Take This Sabbath Day,” often comes to mind when I hear about Trump’s multiplying failures, scandals, and incompetent acts.

Since January 2017, the United States has had to endure presidential corruption, payoffs to porn stars, impeachment, escalating White House-coddled racism and white nationalism, a pandemic, mass unemployment, a rising recession, tear-gassing of protestors, federal forces invading our cities, and LIES, LIES, LIES, and more LIES. How many signs do we need of Trump’s unfitness for office and authoritarian bent before we save ourselves and get rid of him?

“It’s an Apocalypse Now?”

When you’re running for public office, it doesn’t hurt to have a sibling in show business. Bridget McCormack, a University of Michigan Law School professor who is campaigning for a nonpartisan seat on the Michigan Supreme Court, is getting a little help from her sister, Mary McCormack, who starred in the NBC-TV series The West Wing before putting in five seasons on USA Network’s In Plain Sight.

As The Huffington Post notes, Mary McCormack has reunited a few familiar West Wing faces--including those of Martin Sheen, Allison Janney, and Bradley Whitford--for the video ad below that “discusses why it’s important to remember to vote in the nonpartisan part of [Michigan’s] ballot.”

Complexity Isn’t a Vice

Whenever I heard Etch-a-Sketch Romney spout his hollow platitudes about cutting taxes or ensuring “freedom” or letting super-rich “job creators” set the agenda for the United States, I'm reminded of this clip from The West Wing.

A Change Is Gonna Come

Being a big fan of the 1999-2006 NBC-TV series The West Wing, and remembering the oft-cited parallels between that popular political drama and Barack Obama’s history-making presidential campaign, this video just makes me smile from ear to ear.

An Analogy Too Far?

I’ve highlighted before the remarkable parallels between Democrat Barack Obama’s historic campaign for the presidency and the fictional race of Hispanic candidate Matt Santos on the last season of The West Wing. Obama’s announcement yesterday that he has chosen veteran Senator Joe Biden to be his running mate only makes those echoes louder. I thought I was the only person for whom this came to mind, but Steve Benen (newly migrated from The Carpetbagger Report to The Washington Monthly) makes that identical point this morning:

Everyone remembers the seventh season of “The West Wing,” right? A young, charismatic, relatively inexperienced member of Congress, who happens to be part of a minority group, endures through a lengthy and contentious Democratic primary season, and defies the odds against a better known and better tested party favorite to win the nomination. Waiting for him is an older Republican senator from out west, who’s occasionally rankled various constituencies in his own party.

Ring a bell?

And what, pray tell, does the captivating Democratic candidate do when it comes time to pick a running mate? He chooses an older member of the party establishment [Leo McGarry, played by John Spencer], with a background in foreign policy, who helps bring heft to the ticket.

Sure, the parallels are far from exact, but am I the only one who thought of this?

Nope, Steve, you’re not the only one. Let’s just hope those parallels don’t continue, however, for in the TV series, Democrat Santos won the presidency--but McGarry perished from a heart attack shortly before Election Day.

READ MORE: “Biden: A Senate Stalwart Who Bounced Back,” by Patrick Healy and Michael Luo (The New York Times); “Joe Biden: Obama’s Cheney?,” by Jacob Heilbrunn (The Huffington Post).

“The West Wing” as Crystal Ball?

READ MORE: “Life Imitates Art? Obama Rise Previewed in West Wing Campaign,” by David Edwards and Nick Juliano (Raw Story); “In Presidential Campaign, Life Imitates Art,” by Jamal
Simmons (Politico).

Hail to the Chief ... One Last Time

[[T U B E]] * Don’t forget. Tonight is the series finale of The West Wing, one of the finest shows ever to grace America’s TV schedule. For seven seasons, I’ve enjoyed watching U.S. President Josiah “Jed” Bartlet (Martin Sheen), communications director Toby Ziegler (Richard Schiff), deputy chief of staff Josh Lyman (Bradley Whitford), press secretary turned chief of staff C.J. Cregg (Allison Janney), and the remainder of the show’s exceptional cast work out problems of both global and personal scale. Like so many others, I was originally skeptical that the sausage-making of U.S. politics could provide credible and engaging TV drama. But I was wrong, and freely admit it. I was won over by The West Wing in its first season, and have never missed an episode since.

I’ll certainly be watching tonight to see how West Wing writers tie up some of the show’s loose ends, at the same time as they wistfully celebrate the end of the Bartlet administration and the swearing-in of another Democratic president, Matthew Santos (Jimmy Smits). Still to be learned: Will Santos really pick Pennsylvania Governor Eric Baker (Ed O’Neill), to replace the late Leo McGarry (John Spencer) as his vice president? What will become of the finally consummated relationship between Josh and his former adoring assistant, Donna Moss (Janel Moloney)? Will Bartlet ultimately grant clemency to Toby, who leaked top-secret information about a military space shuttle to The Washington Post? And, to tie up one of this Emmy Award-winning show’s most unexpected developments, what will the future hold for nerdy White House communications director Will Bailey (Joshua Malina) and deputy national security adviser Kate Harper (Mary McCormack), who’ve executed a hesitant ballet of courtship during this last season?

The events begin at 7 p.m. (EST, PST) with a rerun of The West Wing’s 1999 pilot episode, to be followed by the final series installment at 8 p.m.

READ MORE: “Turning Out the Lights in ‘The West Wing,’” by Florangela Davila (The Seattle Times); “Bradley Whitford: The TV Squad Interview,” by Bob Sassone (TV Squad); “We’re Smarter, Thanks to ‘West Wing,’” by Mark McGuire (Albany Times-Union); “A Fitting Finale for ‘West Wing,’” by Charlie McCollum (San Jose Mercury News); “‘West Wing’ Finale Will Leave a Void,” by David Zurawik (The Baltimore Sun); “‘West Wing’s’ Term Ending Too Soon,” by Dana Gee (The Province); “Dear ‘West Wing’: Thanks for the Remarkable Term,” by Frazier Moore (Contra Costa Times); “Series Wrap-up: ‘The West Wing,’” by Farhad Manjoo (Salon); More West Wing News.

Taking the Good News ...

[[T U B E]] * The Hollywood Reporter carries the scoop that actor Rob Lowe and eight other alumni from The West Wing’s seven-season history will do guest-star turns during the last five episodes of NBC-TV’s award-winning White House drama series. The Reporter explains:

Lowe, who left “The West Wing” in 2003, will reprise his role as Sam Seaborn in the final two episodes of Aaron Sorkin’s Emmy-winning series.

Also reprising their roles with appearances in one or more of the drama’s final five episodes are Mary-Louise Parker, Anna Deavere Smith, Emily Procter, Marlee Matlin, Gary Cole, Tim Matheson, Timothy Busfield and Annabeth Gish.

Wing’s finale is scheduled to be broadcast on Sunday, May 14.

Lamenting Term Limits

[[T U B E]] * I’m still comfortable living in denial about NBC-TV’s cancellation of The West Wing after seven seasons. But British editor and author Ben Macintyre (The Napoleon of Crime, The Man Who Would Be King) is coming to term with the series’ end by remembering what it was that made this political drama so remarkable and timely. Writing in The Times of London, Macintyre explains that

It was completely made up, but somehow true; it offered a contrast to real politics, but also identified genuine political dilemmas; it was make-believe that somehow made people believe that politics had a point after all. And it lasted over a full, two-term presidency. ... Right-wing critics dismissed the series as a left-wing fetish, an idealized fantasy of what Bill Clinton could have been if he had not been Bill Clinton. Yet Republicans tuned in as avidly as Democrats; British and Japanese viewers became as thoroughly hooked as Americans. The show’s success went far beyond partisan politics; it takes more than ideology to make people sit through an hour of television based on whether or not the U.S. Senate will pass the education budget. ... America produces the worst television in the world but also, very occasionally, the best. The West Wing was one of those entertainments that changed the landscape by dumbing-up, reminding viewers that politics, ludicrous and corrupt though it is, can also be funny, thoughtful and important. Farewell President Bartlet, the best leader America never had.

(Hat tip to TV Squad.)

READ MORE: “‘West Wing’ Deals With Its Final Days,” by Alan Pergament (The Buffalo News).

The Bartlet Era Comes to an End

[[T U B E]] * It’s official: NBC-TV has decided to cancel The West Wing after seven seasons. The political drama’s finale will be broadcast on Sunday, May 14, wrapping up a dramatic season in which President Josiah Bartlet (Martin Sheen) finally ends his eight years in the Oval Office, to be replaced, presumably, by fellow activist Democrat Matthew Santos (Jimmy Smits) of Texas.

Loyal Limbo readers will know that I have long found the brainy West Wing inspiring, especially over the last five years, as George W. Bush has made a mess of America’s economy, isolated the nation dangerously from the rest of the world, and sought to expand his power over the other branches of government. “Jed” Bartlet, by comparison, is a thoughtful, curious chief executive with an appreciation for the sort of crucial nuances that Bush eschews. Surrounding him have been an outstanding cast of characters who’ve learned, changed, and become inspirations in their own ways over the years. People such as gruff but endearing chief of staff Leo McGarry (played by the late John Spencer), highly principled communications director Toby Ziegler (Richard Schiff), brilliant but sometimes oblivious deputy chief of staff Josh Lyman (Bradley Whitford), smart and persuasive press secretary turned chief of staff C.J. Cregg (Allison Janney), and presidential aide Charlie Young (Dulé Hill), who has grown from a political neophyte into a warm, talented official in his own right. It will be more than sad to see all of these fine folks sign off for the last time. It will, for me at least, be a moment in which the hopefulness of a fictional White House run by truly compassionate and conscientious people gives way completely to the bleak reality of a White House operated by and for a conservative elite ignorant of the needs of most Americans.

To tell you the truth, I was expecting NBC--which is in the throes of a major ratings slump--to close out The West Wing with Bartlet’s departure. And there was a part of me that saw this as the fitting thing to do, rather than continue this multiple Emmy Award-winning series with a predominately new administration. But I didn’t want my expectation to be proved right.

ANOTHER GOOD ONE BITES THE DUST: The bad news out of Hollywood just keeps right on coming, as we learn that veteran actor Tony Franciosa died of a massive stroke on Thursday of last week. Franciosa played a variety of film roles over the decades, but I remember him best for his work in a trio of TV series: The Name of the Game, which found him playing one of three adventurous, mystery-solving publishing execs; Search, another series with rotating stars, in which he portrayed a high-tech private investigator; and Matt Helm, a reworking of author Donald Hamilton’s original concept, in which Helm (Franciosa) was a Los Angeles gumshoe, rather than a government operative (as Dean Martin had played him a quartet of 1960s movie spoofs). The actor later played another P.I. in TV’s Finder of Lost Loves, but it was a serious comedown from his previous small-screen work. Franciosa was 77 years old.

READ MORE: “The Real Reason ‘The West Wing’ Was Canceled,” by Russell Shaw (The Huffington Post); “Yes, Still More ‘West Wing’ News,” by Bob Sassone (TV Squad); “Reincarnating ‘The West Wing’: Could the Canceled NBC Drama Be Reborn on iTunes?” by Andy Bowers (Slate).

“An Uncommonly Good Man”

[[O B I T]] * I was saddened to hear that John Spencer, the craggy but endearing character actor who played presidential chief of staff turned vice-presidential candidate Leo McGarry on NBC-TV’s The West Wing, died in Los Angeles on Friday as a result of a heart attack. He was only 58 years old and perished just four days shy of what would have been his 59th birthday on Tuesday.

Richard Schiff, who plays Toby Ziegler, the heart-on-his-sleeve former White House communications director on the series, described Spencer as “one of those rare combinations of divinely gifted and incredibly generous.” Schiff added: “There are very few personal treasures that you put in your knapsack to carry with you for the rest of your life, and he’s one of those.” Aaron Sorkin, who created The West Wing, called Spencer “an uncommonly good man, an exceptional role model, and a brilliant actor.”

Born to working-class parents near Paterson, New Jersey, in 1946, Spencer enrolled in acting classes as a teenager with Liza Minelli, and began his small-screen career by playing the recurring role of Henry Anderson, the boyfriend of British cousin Cathy on the old Patty Duke Show. He went on to take parts in the TV soap Another World and the Al Pacino film Sea of Love (1989), before landing the role of Detective Lipranzer, Harrison Ford’s former partner in the 1990 legal thriller Presumed Innocent. From there, he leapfrogged to portraying Tommy Mullaney, a rumpled and distinctively streetwise attorney on the TV series L.A. Law, following that with roles in a Perry Mason TV movie, the films The Rock (1996) and Twilight (1998), and the short-lived but interesting TV series Trinity. It wasn’t until 1999 that he stepped into what seemed to audiences to be a perfect-fitting role for him as McGarry, a Chicago-reared Vietnam War vet, recovering alcoholic (like Spencer himself) and valium addict, and former U.S. secretary of labor. As West Wing’s backstory revealed, it was the always-in-control McGarry who’d convinced his old friend and then-Governor Josiah “Jed” Bartlet (Martin Sheen) of New Hampshire to compete for the Democratic nomination as president of the United States, and subsequently managed Bartlet’s successful campaign.

Spencer won an Emmy Award in 2002 for his work on The West Wing, and was nominated four other times for his participation in that smart and brilliantly conceived drama. He seemed quite comfortable in the shoes of an old government hand like McGarry. When asked once by a reporter from PBS-TV’s NewsHour with Jim Lehrer whether the hard-edged McGarry was cynical about the purpose and power of government, Spencer replied:

I don’t think so. I think he’s a realist, but I don’t think he's cynical. I don’t think a man of his age could be cynical and choose this life. All parts of Leo’s life are put on hold, except his service to the government and to the president--and to his friend, who happens to be the president. So I don’t think if he were too cynical he would choose that route at this point. I think he’d go into retirement or lecturing, or something like that.

In retrospect, it seems a startling parallel with reality that one of last season’s episodes of The West Wing found McGarry being struck down by a heart attack, shortly after he was dismissed as chief of staff for refusing to support President Bartlet’s optimistic plans for a Middle East peace negotiation. However, McGarry survived, and this year--in what’s been shaping up to be one of this Emmy-winning series’ most dynamic seasons--he was tapped by three-term Texas congressman and Democratic presidential nominee Matthew Santos (Jimmy Smits) to be his running mate. And Wing’s most recent, December 11th episode found officials from the Democratic National Committee trying to convince the much more experienced McGarry to take the Santos campaign’s reins from Bartlet’s former deputy chief of staff, Josh Lyman (Bradley Whitford)--something McGarry was reluctant to do.

Not to take away at all from the sorrow one should feel for the passing of an actor so skilled and watchable as Spencer was, but there’s also the interesting question raised now of how The West Wing’s writers will handle the death of a character so pivotal and popular as Leo McGarry. Given production times, it’s likely that whatever episodes will be broadcast in January and February have already been shot, with Spencer playing McGarry, as usual. Whether those episodes cover the anticipated election of Santos hasn’t yet been reported. If they don’t, then future scripts will have to incorporate the unexpected demise of a vice-presidential nominee (a much trickier matter, it would seem, even than candidate George McGovern’s real-life decision to replace U.S. Senator Thomas Eagleton on the 1972 Democratic ticket, after it was revealed that Eagleton had undergone electroshock treatment for depression); if they do, then the writers will need to build in a state funeral for a newly elected vice president.

The latter case might provide the most novel and dramatic solution. After all, in American history, only seven vice presidents have died while still in office, the first of those being George Clinton (who served under James Madison, but died in 1812) and the most recent being James S. Sherman (who was William Howard Taft’s veep, before succumbing in 1912). Leo McGarry’s perishing on The West Wing, shortly after he wins the presidential election at Santos’ side, would shake things up in fascinating ways, gaining the new president some national sympathy he could leverage to his advantage during his initial months in the Oval Office.

Just a thought ...

DEATH OF A MUCKRAKER: Gone now, too, is Jack Anderson, a onetime war correspondent and Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist who gained fame for unearthing government corruption, uncovering a CIA scheme to assassinate Cuban President Fidel Castro, and revealing ties between the Mafia and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover (who, according to The New York Times, once derided Anderson for being “lower than the regurgitated filth of vultures”). He was 83 years old and died on Saturday from Parkinson’s disease. Read more about Anderson here, here, and here. And investigative reporter Murray Waas, who has written elsewhere that he “worked for Jack when I was still just a kid, when I was 18 and 19 years old,” pens an especially fine encomium to Anderson in The Village Voice. Don’t miss it.

Command Performances

[[T U B E]] * From the Life Imitates Art File: The New York Post reports that George W. Bush, confronted with the right-wing mutiny over Harriet Miers’ Supreme Court nomination, skyrocketing gas prices, Plamegate and other worsening scandals that threaten his presidency and the Republican Party’s future, and the ongoing disaster in Iraq (which, as of this writing, has left 1,981 U.S. soldiers dead) has lately been watching reruns of The West Wing. That might not be the worst idea in the world.

Certainly, the Democratic administration portrayed in that Emmy Award-winning NBC-TV drama, now in its seventh year (and relocated to Sundays at 8 p.m. ET/PT), has weathered its full share--and then some--of hurdles, self-inflicted wounds, and partisan imbroglios. Vice President John Hoynes (played by Tim Matheson) resigned after leaking classified information to his socialite mistress. President Josiah “Jed” Bartlet (Martin Sheen) was censured by the U.S. Senate for concealing the fact that he suffers from relapsing/remitting multiple sclerosis. Chief of staff Leo McGarry (John Spencer) was hauled before a GOP-dominated Congress to answer questions about his history of drug and alcohol abuse. And (spoiler alert!) in last Sunday’s episode, “Mr. Frost,” White House communications director Toby Ziegler (Richard Schiff) admitted that it was he who, in the cause of rescuing astronauts trapped on board the International Space Station, leaked top-secret information about a military space shuttle to The Washington Post. Even Karl Rove hasn’t been accused of anything that perfidious.

Yet Dubya doesn’t possess so much as half of Jed Bartlet’s smarts or compassion, so he isn’t likely to come up with a strategy to revitalize his beleaguered and unpopular administration, no matter how many episodes he watches. Besides, The West Wing is all about nuance, and as Bush once famously told Senator Joe Biden, “I don’t do nuance.”

The prez would probably be happier tuning in to the earnest but nonetheless insipid new ABC-TV drama Commander in Chief (Tuesdays, 9 p.m. ET/PT). Starring the pillowy-lipped Geena Davis as Mackenzie Allen, a onetime congresswoman and former Virginia university administrator who was elected as the first female vice president in U.S. history--only to ascend to the Oval Office following the expiration of Republican Teddy Roosevelt Bridges (Will Lyman)--Commander in Chief is, as political dramas go, a single shrimp puff in comparison with the multicourse, alternately comic and tragic meal that is The West Wing. Wing has built surprisingly engrossing stories around the tactics involved in confirming a thoughful, liberal chief justice to the U.S. Supreme Court and the ultimately ridiculous notion of repackaging the brainy Bartlet to look more “just folks” in his re-election battle against an opponent known for slogan-based policymaking; Commander finds its stories in the continuing and painfully predictable rivalry between Allen and Republican Speaker of the House Nathan Templeton (Donald Sutherland). While The West Wing this season gives viewers a behind-the-scenes, warts-and-all plot line about how presidential campaigns are engineered (and so easily fouled up), Commander spends its time dealing with the obvious fact that a president’s children don’t see enough of their elected parent, and with international crises that can apparently be solved simply through the exercise of a president’s will. (Yeah, tell that to Bush.) Commander “never gets much beyond its gimmicky premise, and that results in a good deal of wasted time,” writes Washington Post TV critic Tom Shales. “Can you imagine?! A woman as president of the United States?! Well, yes, we can imagine it, so let’s get on with some good stories and knotty controversies and horns of dilemmas.” (In fact, the idea of a female head of state isn’t even new on television; the 1985 sitcom Hail to the Chief had Patty Duke as U.S. President Julia Mansfield.)

After its loss in 2003 of creator/writer Aaron Sorkin, followed by an uneven fifth season, The West Wing has largely regained its footing and continues to elevate what could be parched political debate into the stuff of brilliant drama. By comparison, Commander in Chief is American Politics for Dummies, bereft of a crucial understanding that legislating is mostly about small steps and compromise, not big leaps and confrontation.

Of course, neither of these series is perfect. Both dwell in fantasy. West Wing, for instance, is currently embroiled in a campaign to find a successor for two-termer Bartlet. The contenders are Democrat Matthew Santos (Jimmy Smits), a third-term Hispanic congressman from Texas, and Republican U.S. Senator Arnold Vinick (Alan Alda) of California, a fiscal conservative but social liberal. Considering the GOP’s dominance by ultra-right religious activists, there seems no way in hell that a maverick like Vinick--who hasn’t attended church since his wife passed away prematurely, and may actually be an atheist--could win his party’s presidential nomination, especially with so little bloodletting and so few repercussions. Meanwhile, Commander in Chief asks us to believe: (1) that Allen, a political independent, would be chosen by a right-winger like Bridges as his vice-presidential running mate; and (2) that having moved into the Oval, she would, in turn, struggle to fill her second-fiddle seat with Warren Keaton (Peter Coyote), a former U.S. Army general who’d previously campaigned against her as the VP candidate on the Democratic ticket. That represents some wide-eyed screenwriter’s delusion that Commander can appeal to Republicans, who will like the idea that it’s about an ostensibly GOP-led White House, without forsaking the possibility of this show someday being able to capture West Wing’s well-educated and well-off viewership. In the interim, though, Commander just looks desperate for attention. And Republicans apparently remain suspicious of its intent, thinking that it might be softening up the ground for a White House run by Hillary Rodham Clinton in 2008.

Wing makes no bones about its Democratic basis. Most of the Republicans on the show who have even halfway substantive roles usually come off as gun-loving, narrow-visioned stand-ins for humans. And yet, Vinick has been given three dimensions and a heart, to boot. Maybe it’s just because I remember actor Alda so fondly from M*A*S*H, but I enjoy watching his performance on West Wing, especially his struggle to steer between the competing poles (conservative vs. moderate) of his own party. If he lacks Santos’ more youthful vigor and activist impulses, he nonetheless demonstrates something better than the me-first, destroy-government attitude with which Republicans are so often (and justly) associated. It will be interesting to watch the upcoming “live debate” between Santos and Vinick, scheduled for Sunday, November 6, and to be moderated by real-life ABC anchorman Forrest Sawyer. On the other hand, I’m not sure that I’d stick around if Vinick was actually elected to fill President Bartlet’s leather seat. Adding to the attractions of The West Wing over the last five years has been the conspicuous contrast between Bartlet and Bush; saddling us with a GOP ideologue in the actual White House and then placing a conservative chorus member in its fictional counterpart might be too discouraging to bear. The country deserves better on both counts.

Political drama is damnably hard to make interesting on television--just ask the folks who gave us Mister Sterling and K Street. The West Wing has set a high standard for storytelling, which Commander in Chief shows no signs of measuring up to. News that NYPD Blue producer Steven Bochco is being brought in to replace Commander series creator-executive producer Rod Lurie, plus rumors that Bochco might impeach Geena Davis in favor of a male replacement, don’t give me much hope for the show’s longevity. Like Bush, this nominee for TV renown may well go down in history as a failure.

READ MORE: “Sorkin Back at NBC With ‘Studio’ Deal, “ by Andrew Wallenstein (The Hollywood Reporter); “Smell the History: ABC’s Commander in Chief is Cheesy Good Fun,” by Dana Stevens (Slate).