Bartlet4America News Archive

Former President Dines With Fictional President

By LLOYD GROVE
Washington Post

A couple of days after fictional President Josiah Bartlet begged off from a VIP White House tour for "West Wing" cast members — after all, Martin Sheen, the actor who plays him, did call President Bush a "moron" recently — Sheen showed up with bells on for a dinner at Washington's Etrusco restaurant with former president Bill Clinton.

Sheen and Clinton were in a party that grew from 12 to 20 Monday night at the pricey Italian eatery, where "West Wing" producer Llewellyn Wells picked up the eye-popping tab and, turning in a respectable Celebrity Tip Challenge performance, left 20 percent extra. Also there to be regaled by Clinton with stories of his recent visits to Africa and India were actors Bradley Whitford and Richard Schiff and Clinton loyalists Karen Tramontano, Joel Johnson, Julia Payne, Joe Lockhart, Steve Ricchetti, Capricia Marshall, and Jake Siewert. The former White House press secretary showed up wearing flip-flops. "He was the only person there wearing open-toed footwear," Payne told us this morning.

While Clinton tucked into stufato di salsiccia and sauteed salmon, washed down with Silician red wine, he led a discussion about "everything under the sun," Payne added. "The staffers were sitting at the far end of the table and Richard Schiff was commenting on our expertise in being able to hear what was being said while ordering from the menu and doing a lot of other things. And we told him, it's easy when you've heard the stories 10 times."

President Bartlet, apparently fully recovered from a bad cold that he was battling over the weekend, stayed after almost everyone else had left — past 11 p.m. — and picked up the restaurant's ringing phone with a crisp "Etrusco!" Former president Clinton, meanwhile, went home to sleep at the big Embassy Row house he shares with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.).