It's a strange time to post a blog which is a cultural critique but I could resist no longer - even though this is a TV series that ceased being broadcast over 5 years ago.
I've just finished rewatching the TV series "The West Wing". I've got the entire thing on DVD and I rewatch episodes on a regular basis because I simply love the pace and language of the writing.
Obviously I find the storyline - that is: the everyday story of Whitehouse Folk - interesting too, but for the most part I would previously have been unable to recount, with any accuracy, most of the political points it was making.
Whether I've just taken more interest in politics in general recently, or whether something else is at play, I'm not sure. No matter. What has shone out - fluoresced, even - is the sheer prescience of the storylines.
For those of you who haven't watched it here's a an overall idea of what it's about.
Josiah (Jed) Bartlett is a Noble prize-winning economist turned politician who has become the democratic president of the US (aka POTUS).
He has a staff around him of similarly clever people - Leo McGarry (Chief of Staff), Josh Lymon (Deputy CoS), Toby Ziegler (Comms director), Sam Seabourne (Deputy Comms Director), CJ Cregg (Press Secretary) and Charlie Young (Personal Aide/Body man). There are others, of course, but these are the main people you see and learn to love.
Bartlett is a compassionate and decent man - but he's also deeply flawed and this is where all the drama comes from and where the storylines become believable.
I think what I like best is that even though it's drama, it generally doesn't simplify the issues around running the most powerful nation in the World.
It was generally lauded as a great series with even "people in the know" being reasonably complimentary about its general accuracy even if some people found the characters to be a bit too morally pure or naive. Then again, it was fictional so I don't think we should be too harsh.
What has stunned me, however, is how stories told in WW have been played out in the real Whitehouse long after the TV programme was shown.
SPOILER ALERT
If you haven't seen it, and plan to you might want to stop reading now...
Storylines include:
Bartlett being suceeded after two terms in office by the first ethnic minority president (Latino) who succeeds less on his colour than his popular following.
The Whitehouse and the two elected houses getting their knickers in a knot over whether they can raise the deficit ceiling.
A nuclear power plant (OK in the US, not Japan) suffering potential meltdown after cooling water system failed. Radioactive steam first escaping into a containment building and then requiring venting into the atmosphere when the pressure in that building got too high.
POTUS agonising over the need to carry out a state killing of a foreign terrorist of high standing without due process.
...and there are others.
Maybe an infinite number of plotlines and real life stories will necessarily generate cross over...maybe Aaron Sorkin and the other writers, together with their advisers were just very good at what they do.
In any event, if you find US politics in some way interesting but maybe need some lessons on how it works, or like snappy (if too good to be true) dialog, or even the occasional slapstick moment and you haven't experienced WW yet I commend you to get to it.
Warning - the style is very fast and you sometimes feel you've been dumped in the middle of the action, even though the opening credits have only just finished. My advice is to treat it like a Shakespeare play and stop listening so hard. Relax a little and let it flow through you - it'll be well worth it.
