Has The West Wing Screwed Us All?

Posted at 8:38 am on Monday, November 7, 2005, in Uncategorized.

Last night’s episode of the West Wing, titled the “Live Debate,” may have screwed the cause of many liberal (and/or conservative) bloggers. Why? Because the “fake” live debate was so real, all of our talking points from here on in will just be reflections of that one West Wing debate episode.

I had originally cringed at the idea as the promos declared a “live debate” episode on the West Wing. I thought to myself, “This is silly; this is not a real election.” And the way the debate started with the reciting of the dull rules of “combat,” and the presence of a “Live NBC News” logo in the bottom-right corner, I had thought that Lawrence O’Donnell had gone mad. But after Alan Alda’s character started his opening statements with the dropping of the rules, something that even the show acknowledges would never happen, the “real effect” of the show dissappeared (meaning the thought that this was a “real” election went away). What followed, however, was one of the greatest debates in our day. The issues were actually discussed. And the solutions offered were true ideas of actionable policy; from the left and the right.

But now for the rest of us, if we ever state the opinion that Medicare should cover everyone, end of story, people will say to us, “Oh, you saw that on the West Wing.”

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