West Wing
I’m a huge fan of the show. But I’m finding it faulty on many levels right now. Here’s an example.
The people of The West Wing, involved as they are in professional politics, must deal constantly with those who disagree, even vehemently, with them. This, in some sense, marks them as different from the rest of Americans, who can structure their daily lives and work to avoid significant disagreement with other people on public matters, social and political. Even so, Americans know that the health of the Republic depends upon the cultivation of debate and disagreement, but they generally leave the matter to politicians, talking heads, academics, and other members of the “chattering classes.” Every step of life in TWW brings the staffers and the president into regular contact with conflict. As fulfillers of their duty, to serve the public interest, what duty do these characters bear toward those who disagree with them?
This question has been answered in various fashions since the beginning of the series. In the pilot episode of the series, many of the answers to the above question appear via a major subplot. As the episode opens, we learn that the deputy chief of staff, Josh Lyman (Bradley Whitford), has insulted a leader of the Christian right-wing on one of the Sunday morning talk shows that are a staple of the political game.
Mary Marsh: No. Well, I can tell you that you don’t believe in any God that I pray to, Mr. Lyman. Not any God that I pray to.
Josh: Lady, the God you pray to is too busy being indicted for tax fraud.
For this comment and possibly angering a powerful constituency the president can ill-afford to cross at this point, Josh’s job is in danger. We learn in the meantime that the president is a “deeply religious man”1 who discourages young women from having abortions but who “does not believe that it’s the government’s place to legislate this issue.”2 White House Communications Director Toby Ziegler (Richard Schiff) arranges a meeting between the staff, including Josh, and the Christian conservatives who are angered by his remark. Josh apologizes for the tenor of his remark and notes that any person willing to debate ideas deserves better than glib insults. One of the Christian conservatives speaks up, asking what her group will get in return for the insult, quickly demanding a presidential radio address in support of school vouchers or against pornography (with the implication that neither is a policy position the president would take). Finally, the president appears in the midst of heated argument, and asks the visitors why they have not denounced a fringe group called The Lambs of God. He explains that he is upset and extremely angry.
Bartlet: It seems my granddaughter, Annie, had given an interview in one of those teen magazines and somewhere between movie stars and makeup tips, she talked about her feelings on a woman’s right to choose. Now Annie, all of 12, has always been precocious, but she’s got a good head on her shoulders and I like it when she uses it, so I couldn’t understand it when her mother called me in tears yesterday…. Now I love my family and I’ve read my Bible from cover to cover so I want you to tell me: From what part of Holy Scripture do you suppose the Lambs of God drew their divine inspiration when they sent my 12-year-old granddaughter a Raggedy Ann doll with a knife stuck in its throat? (pause) You’ll denounce these people. You’ll do it publicly. And until you do, you can all get your fat asses out of my White House. (Everyone is frozen.) C.J., show these people out.
Mary Marsh: I believe we can find the door.
Bartlet: Find it now.3
This president does not remain above menace and intimidation when he believes that the various peoples he must deal with have violated their own duties. As the statements above indicate, the president’s duty includes a mutual respect for his adversaries, until they violate the compact of democratic deliberative discourse. Once they have done that, or people associated with them have done so (as the Lambs of God were loosely associated with but not part of the organizations the lobbyists represented), they are no longer worthy to participate in the the public sphere that the president controls (a fairly significant portion). The above dialogue also indicates that the president in TWW perceives part of his duty to be the control of the public discourse. If locking radicals out of the White House proves to be his solution, he sets himself up as an arbiter of what and what is not acceptable for people to say to gain entry into the public sphere. No support for the actions of the fictional radicals is implied here, but the president indicates from the very beginning of the series that he will serve as a cop for republican conduct in American politics. One also wonders whether the president would have acted so forcefully on the (implied) right side had the victim of the radical act not been his granddaughter. Unfortunately, we are given no further clues as to the extent of the president’s duty to act as republican policeman or whether he acts on a particular duty when it does not affect him in a personal way.
One of the criticisms of the show lies in the personalization of policy that often occurs in TWW. Chris Lehmann noted in Atlantic Monthly,
…In the thickets of controversy that crop up in the Bartlet Administration, the strongest objection to a policy or a decision to overstep protocol is usually that it doesn’t feel right. And when the members of Team Bartlet chart a new policy course, it is because they agree that it suits the perceived national mood or because it springs… from a profound personal experience…. If one of the sixties’ most enduring — if dubious — notions is that the personal is political, The West Wing operates from the converse: the political is, above all, personal.4
More interesting for questions of political ideology than Lehmann’s center-right critique is another question. What are the sources of action, belief, and opinion when a public servant follows one’s sense of duty? TWW, unfortunately, either does not answer or offers a vague notion, such as “love of country.”
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