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    The West Wing

    I am wondering whether people will envy me.

    I only got into The West Wing for a couple of episodes in the middle of one of the last few series. While realising its quality, I tohught I would rather wait until some kind soul bought me the whole series.

    My wife did just this for Christmas and, to thnak her, we sat down and watched the first three episodes over the weekend.

    I wasn't sure how she would like it, as she is even less aware of US politics than the miniscule amount I know. At first, we were both flummoxed by the jargon - even with subtitles - but I said to let it all wash over us and concentrate on the characters and the story and she was hooked.

    We are three-quarters through the first disc and have 22 to go. It is as thrilling as walking on snow with no previous footprints

    #2
    The West Wing

    You still have "The Warfare of Genghis Khan" ahead of you. You still have "The Supremes" and "Two Cathedrals" and Santos's campaign ad.

    You lucky, lucky bastard.

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      #3
      The West Wing

      Yes, indeed. I also have the whole Sopranos set, having not watched the last six episodes. Needless to say, I will start from the beginning to have a run up to that

      Next year, I am asking for the time to watch it all as a present

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        #4
        The West Wing

        You'll be a student, of course you;ll have time

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          #5
          The West Wing

          I recently managed to get hold of the whole set and watched them all. Fuck me it was magnificent. Bit ropy when Sorking left, but some cracking episodes all the same - The Supremes is superb and the whole campaign stuff in seasons 6 and 7 really got gripping and pacy - it was a side of the political scene we'd never seen apart from glimpses through flashbacks to the first Presidential run.

          Some limited spoilers of no consequence:

          Though given the fast pace of dialogue, it would have been really easy to tie up loose ends easily enough. Why did Mandy just disappear without comment? Why was Cliff Calley brought in to run legislative affairs then quietly dropped? Having needed a replacement for Sam, when that replacement needed replacing, they decided not to bother. And having completely changed the course of US foreign policy in the inaugural, they basically forgot they'd done from there on in. I could go on. I know they're all production issues but it would have been easy enough to reference them - they're more continuity issues than substantive.

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            #6
            The West Wing

            i was addicted to the series when it first started and as bowled over as Bored has been by that first series. Sorkin leaving was a bit of a blow, however. What's more, the longer it went on, the more I developed a nausea at its "parallel universe Presidency". For me, it eventually crossed the line between depicting the Oval Office as it ought to be and serving as an idealisation of American political decency and liberal self-satisfaction (self-delusion?) which a lot of people ended up buying into. That The West Wing was a big favourite among New Labour operatives was telling to me.

            Also, Sorkin despite the ostensible Liberal bias of the series, the show was a lot harsher on the Left than it was on the Right, to whom it often extended a bit too glad a bipartisan hand. Anyone remember the episode with the G8-style protestors, who are treated with utter contempt? Contrast that with the right wing blonde maverick, apparently based on Anne Coulter, who is depicted as bright and sympathetic.

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              #7
              The West Wing

              Couldn't have been that strongly based on her, then . . .

              I was given the full series of this for Christmas by my brother, but haven't watched any of it yet. I'm guessing that, like Wingco, I'll be dazzled by the dialogue but sickened by the soft-focus touchy-feelyness of the overall air of the thing.

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                #8
                The West Wing

                Though given the fast pace of dialogue, it would have been really easy to tie up loose ends easily enough. Why did Mandy just disappear without comment? Why was Cliff Calley brought in to run legislative affairs then quietly dropped? Having needed a replacement for Sam, when that replacement needed replacing, they decided not to bother. And having completely changed the course of US foreign policy in the inaugural, they basically forgot they'd done from there on in. I could go on. I know they're all production issues but it would have been easy enough to reference them - they're more continuity issues than substantive.
                Yeah, the continuity stuff is just appalling. It's the only thing I can really fault the show on, though, I've never really got wingco's "Parallel universe" complaint.

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                  #9
                  The West Wing

                  Well, just to add a little to that - I think that it's part of the show's insidiousness that it could be so good - so well written, so dark in places, so sophisticated and so ruefully aware of how idealism is hamstrung by realpolitik. But it too often felt like a propaganda for the brilliance and good intentions of Washington, whose supernaturally gifted apparatiks can spout fluent Sorkin-speak while walking briskly down the White House corridors, and have all the data and stats about everything at their instant disposal and work 20 hour days without their stamina letting up. Only one thing turns these people weak at the knees and that is the Office of the President of the United States, before which their sass and cynicism melts into reverential patriotism.

                  I guess what I'm saying is that for its hard exterior, it's fundamentally a soft centred programme. The WG "Snuffy" Walden soundtrack captures that delusional, flagwaving softness throughout. It's one thing to idealise, quite another to airbrush away the cruelties of what high American politics is really about, domestically and abroad. Getting too much into The West Wing is like getting too mesmerised by old black and white pictures of JFK in the Oval Office and that whole "Camelot" shit. JFK was pretty much the opposite of everything a lot of good people hoped and dreamt and imagined he was. The cunt kicked off Vietnam, for a start.

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                    #10
                    The West Wing

                    the cruelties of what high American politics is really about, domestically and abroad.

                    Can you be more specific?

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                      #11
                      The West Wing

                      Kennedy didn't kick off Vietnam. We began funding the French effort against the Vietminh as early as 1950, under Truman.

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                        #12
                        The West Wing

                        Most likely, Reed, so let me put it another way - he didn't exactly put a dampener on the SE Asia adventure, did he? It escalated under his watch and with his blessing.

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                          #13
                          The West Wing

                          As for the Sultan's request, I'm afraid I'm still racking my brains for examples - can anyone help an old man out in a senior moment here?

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                            #14
                            The West Wing

                            That's true in hindsight. Although some historians have suggested that he naively thought sending a bunch of green berets there would nip the whole thing in the bud and wouldn't require further escalation.

                            I agree he is a vastly overrated figure.

                            He did give a few good speeches, however. The I am a jelly doughnut one and the New Frontier one, especially.

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                              #15
                              The West Wing

                              I appreciate the sarcasm wingco, but I really just wondered what you meant by high American politics being "really about" whatever forms of cruelty you had in mind. Or perhaps, how such innate cruelties might set it apart from high politics in any other sphere.

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                                #16
                                The West Wing

                                Wingco is spot on - the West Wing wasn't anti-Bush - it was Clinton with the ability to keep his cock in his pants and a fierce religosity.

                                That meant all the trimmings the Clinton era made in the area of 'free trade' were argued to be super duper great things. In 'Talking Points, Josh is basically told that we know better, we high presits of economics and we know free trade will eventually pay off for the soon-to-be jobless skilled workers of the USA.

                                The Clinton consensus animated the early part of the show, and for all his playing to the liberal gallery on one-off issues like foreign aid, crime, drugs, he played to gallery as the President you'd love to have. But on the really, really really important stuff - the economic consensus Clinton ramped up which lead to today's fuck-up (I'm looking at you Larry Summers and you Robert Rubin) - he was a new Democrat as they come.

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                                  #17
                                  The West Wing

                                  Sorry for sarkiness Bruno, but I suppose when it comes to US politics I basically come down to a Chomsky-ite, What Uncle Sam really Wants-style position - whether it's disastrous attempts at "trickledown" economics, brutal interventions in foreign policy, backwardness on the environment issue and aggressive pursuit of corporate interests uber alles. The only way in which it's set apart from "high politics in any other sphere" is that all of this is conducted behind the fig leaf of an idealism, often genuinely heartfelt by the perpetrators of US policy, a feeling that for all its mistakes, America acts grandly, selflessly and conscientiously for the best rather than covertly, greedily and ignominiously for the worst.

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                                    #18
                                    The West Wing

                                    My parents have been lending me each series once they've finished them (they take weeks completing them), and i've now finished Season 5 and patiently waiting for them to finish Season 6.
                                    Exceptional show, but I do miss the presence of Sam Seaborn.

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                                      #19
                                      The West Wing

                                      Yes, from what I've gathered Chomsky sees a unitary, purposeful will behind a lot of massive, complex collective actions (and always a malicious one).

                                      The only way in which it's set apart from "high politics in any other sphere" is that all of this is conducted behind the fig leaf of an idealism, often genuinely heartfelt by the perpetrators of US policy, a feeling that for all its mistakes, America acts grandly, selflessly and conscientiously for the best rather than covertly, greedily and ignominiously for the worst.
                                      So there isn't a fig leaf of idealism being brandished anywhere else?

                                      No one but no one in politics truly thinks America acts 'selflessly'. A bunch of yahoos may think that about the wars we've fought or the overseas charity we give, but the people making policy aren't so preoccupied with that particular conceit. Much of political discourse focuses on "what's best for Americans" which doesn't square with that; unless one is just referring to vestigial memories of past victorious wars.

                                      As for being conscientiously grand, the question is do these perpetrators really feel like they're acting for the best, do they want to - or are they knowingly lying, and really want "the worst"? I'll go with (a), for most of them, with the allowance that many are deeply misguided. But I can't see a monolithic entity under the rubric "American high politics." There are always covert shenanigans going on, but it's still an open enough society to have such things ultimately exposed for what they are, unless that is you're a far-gone conspiracy theorist.

                                      Capitalism is seen as a bargain where greedy motives lead to a greater good. I'm sure that's behind a lot of the apparent dissonance between ideals and actions.

                                      The notion that our current economic mess is down to Clintonian free trade policies is a new one to me. Though maybe I misread that point.

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                                        #20
                                        The West Wing

                                        i can't comment with any authority on the west wing because i've only ever seen a couple of episodes. i could just never get interested in the show, despite many recommendations from friends.

                                        i've heard people praise the dialogue in TWW and i remember it being pretty snappy in the couple of episodes i saw. dialogue is probably the single most important aspect of a good tv show, but it's not really enough by itself. you need a ring of truth. watching the west wing i just thought, ok, this definitely isn't how it really is. that decent president with his sad wise eyes like the stricken aslan. it was to US politics what grey's anatomy is to the medical profession, with an extra gloss of infantile fantasy.

                                        i'm sure fans of the show would tell me to go watch some more episodes before making baseless criticisms. but isn't it hopelessly dated now? whatever about when it was current, watching it now seems like a total waste of time. like reading your way through an attic full of pulp bestsellers from the 1950s.

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                                          #21
                                          The West Wing

                                          There are always covert shenanigans going on, but it's still an open enough society to have such things ultimately exposed for what they are
                                          not by shows like the west wing however. in TWW decent thoughtful people were in control of the US government. meanwhile back in the reality-based community dick cheney was running the white house.

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                                            #22
                                            The West Wing

                                            Dick Cheney is a bit of an outlier, though, isn't he?

                                            I don't think one should approach watching The West Wing as though it's meant to be realistic. Neither was ER, but that was pretty entertaining stuff. Just make the popcorn and have a little escapism. Also, it helps to have a milf-crush on Allison Janney.

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                                              #23
                                              The West Wing

                                              No, covert shenanigans happened in TWW, and were exposed. Time and again. If anything, it got repetitive as a plot device.

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                                                #24
                                                The West Wing

                                                Bruno - Donna, Amy, and Ainsley Hayes, yet you fixate on CJ? Inexplicable.

                                                I wouldn't... etc.

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                                                  #25
                                                  The West Wing

                                                  Dick Cheney is a bit of an outlier, though, isn't he?
                                                  in some senses yes, but he was right at the centre of executive power.

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