LEFT WING SORKIN BLASTS BUSH: WE'RE 'PRETENDING' HE HAS EXHIBITED UNSPEAKABLE COURAGE
The force behind NBC's WEST WING is blasting off against the real West Wing in upcoming pages of the NEW YORKER, which names Aaron Sorkin "the country's loyal opposition."
NY'ER reporter Tad Friend has penned a high-impact Talk of the Town set for release in March 4 editions.
Sorkin, the creatorproducerwriter of WEST WING, tells Friend: "It's absolutely right that at this time we're all laying off the [Bush] bubblehead jokes. But that's a far cry from what the Times and CNN and others on whom we rely for unvarnished objectivity are telling us, which is that 'My God! On September 12th he woke up as Teddy Roosevelt! He became the Rough Rider!'"
Of NBC's own look at a day in the life of the Presidency, 'The Bush White House: Inside the Real West Wing,' which aired as the lead-in to a WEST WING repeat a few weeks ago, Sorkin charges: "The White House pumped up the President's schedule to show him being much busier and more engaged than he is, and Tom Brokaw let it happen?"
Sorkin continues: "The show was a valentine to Bush. That illusion may be what we need right now, but the truth is we're simply pretending to believe that Bush exhibited unspeakable courage at the World Series by throwing out the first pitch at Yankee Stadium, or that he, by God, showed those terrorists by going to Salt Lake City and jumbling the first line of the Olympic opening ceremony.
"The media is waving pom-poms, and the entire country is being polite," Sorkin declares.
"I just began reading Frank Bruni's campaign book AMBLING INTO HISTORY: THE UNLIKELY ODYSSEY OF GEORGE W. BUSH which begins with Candidate Bush at a service in Texas for seven people who were killed in a church by a crazy gunman. Bruni describes Bush making goofy faces at the press, and it reminds you of a junior high schooler on a museum field trip."
Sorkin tells the mag that he is planning to revisit the BUSH-GORE Florida showdown in an upcoming episode.
President Josiah Bartlet [played by actor Martin Sheen, who has called Bush a white knuckled drunk] is up for re-election this November. "Bartlet is going to be running against Governor Robert Ritchie, of Florida, who's not the sharpest tool in the box but who's raised a lot of money and is very popular with the Republican Party,? Sorkin says.
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