Would you really say that Jed Bartlett was more liberal than Hillary Clinton? If Jed Bartlett were real, the same people who are planning to vote third party now would be begging Sen. Seth Gillette or Howard Stackhouse to run and sneering at Bartlett supporters.
And in that scene, Leo McGarry says he wants to see a “good man” get elected president, and yet that “good man” conceals his multiple sclerosis from the voters, with the full knowledge and participation of McGarry.
Don’t get me wrong — I liked The West Wing and liked President Bartlett. But I liked them because Bartlett was both compromised and compromising. It wasn’t the left-wing fantasy that many conservative critics claimed it was. Bartlett’s White House rarely won a victory without having to pay a price that many liberals would find distasteful at a minimum.
Would you really say that Jed Bartlett was more liberal than Hillary Clinton? If Jed Bartlett were real, the same people who are planning to vote third party now would be begging Sen. Seth Gillette or Howard Stackhouse to run and sneering at Bartlett supporters.
And in that scene, Leo McGarry says he wants to see a “good man” get elected president, and yet that “good man” conceals his multiple sclerosis from the voters, with the full knowledge and participation of McGarry.
Don’t get me wrong — I liked The West Wing and liked President Bartlett. But I liked them because Bartlett was both compromised and compromising. It wasn’t the left-wing fantasy that many conservative critics claimed it was. Bartlett’s White House rarely won a victory without having to pay a price that many liberals would find distasteful at a minimum.