Bartlet4America News Archive

Aaron Sorkin’s smart women always seem to get dumber

By JOHN LEVESQUE
Seattle Union Record

If you see me on the picket line this week, it may have nothing to do with my employment situation. Evidence is building to suggest that Aaron Sorkin is no friend of women, and it’s time we begin the protest before he goes all David E. Kelley on us.

Sorkin, the creator of “The West Wing,” whose juggernautical Emmy sweep in September has vaulted the Wednesday night series (9 p.m., KING/5) to a regular spot in the Nielsen Top 10, is systematically trashing the female characters in TV’s best ensemble, just as he did with his other critically acclaimed series, the late, lamented “Sports Night.”

Take White House press secretary C.J. Cregg, played with spectacular strength and conviction by Allison Janney. Week in and week out C.J. is a victim of belittlement at the hands of her male colleagues and, in the case of last week’s episode, President Josiah Bartlet himself. OK, it was good-natured ribbing over C.J.’s slighting of Notre Dame football, but it’s getting to the point where, just as we could always expect Lucy Ricardo to do something stupid and have Ricky fix it, we’ve been conditioned to wait for C.J.’s next gaffe and wonder along with the more experienced (read: smarter) guys if it will have a serious effect on life as we know it inside the Beltway.

True, C.J. is supposed to be the least savvy, least confident member of our favorite White House senior staff, but, her Emmy for best supporting actress notwithstanding, Sorkin isn’t doing Janney any favors. Where Sam Seaborn (Rob Lowe), Josh Lyman (Bradley Whitford) and Toby Ziegler (Richard Schiff) are also prone to humbling moments of mere-mortalism on “The West Wing,” C.J. is somehow the only one whose missteps are magnified under the lens of sexist condescension, as if a pat on the head will make everything better.

It is to Janney’s everlasting credit that she can make C.J. the most likable member of a great cast under these circumstances, but Sorkin is running a big risk. When Moira Kelly left the show after playing public relations specialist Mandy Hampton in the first season, Sorkin admitted he’d had trouble finding the right voice for Mandy, who rarely amounted to much more than corridor filler for all those dashing-through-the-halls scenes that give “The West Wing” its frenetic gestalt.

Kelly’s departure has opened up a bigger role this season for Janel Moloney, who plays Josh Lyman’s witty, willowy secretary, Donna Moss. But the more we see of Donna this season, the more her wit is becoming witless. It is so reminiscent of the path Sorkin took with Felicity Huffman on “Sports Night” that fans of “The West Wing” should be very, very wary, and should implore Sorkin to stop dumbing down his women and making them symbols of disempowerment.

In the first season of “Sports Night,” Huffman played Dana Whitaker, a smart, savvy and, yes, sexy cable-show producer. By the end of the second and final season, Dana was a simpering, whimpering gasbag who was a few sandwiches short of a picnic. Similarly, Dana’s lieutenant, Natalie Hurley (Sabrina Lloyd), took the fast train to ditzville as Sorkin clearly ran out of intelligent things to put in the mouths of the babes he had inadvertently created.

I once asked Sorkin about these alterations, and he said he didn’t think Dana and Natalie had changed at all. If that’s truly the case, then we’re in for a big letdown as the women of “The West Wing” begin to show their true selves. And if last week was an indicator, we should start picketing immediately, because Moloney’s Donna is about to become Sorkin’s next bubblehead.

Donna, who has long, blond hair, went completely stupid in a scene with the show’s newest character, deputy counsel Ainsley Hayes (Emily Procter), who also has long, blond hair. The exchange, ostensibly about Donna’s concern that she and Ainsley look too much alike, was so vapid as to make Aaron Spelling’s godawful “Titans,” which precedes “The West Wing,” seem like an installment of Masterpiece Theatre.

If Aaron Sorkin wants to be the next Aaron Spelling, fine. But he should have the guts to create dim-witted sexpots from the get-go, and not sucker us in through false advertising.

The West Wing’s Special Guest Star

PlanetOut News Staff

PlanetOut speaks with the out actor who played a gay congressman backing a homophobic bill on one of TV’s best — and most gay-friendly — dramas.

On the November 15 episode of The West Wing, Republican Congressman Matt Skinner (Charley Lang) presented the president (Martin Sheen) with the Marriage Recognition Act, a bill that would prohibit same-sex marriages. In the course of the episode, though, Skinner came out as gay. Exploring the issue of how and why a gay politician might find himself in this position was a challenge that Lang, who is himself gay, welcomed. He spoke with PlanetOut about the storyline — how it originated and what the gay / lesbian / bisexual / transgender (GLBT) community might learn from it.

PlanetOut: The idea for this storyline came out of a conversation you had with Aaron Sorkin.

Charley Lang: Right. I did two episodes of the show last season. This past winter I was working on the No on Knight campaign. [The Knight Initiative, which was passed by California voters in March, prohibits same-sex marriages in the state.] In the midst of doing my political work, I called Aaron up and said that I wanted to talk to him about a topical idea for the show. So I came in and let him know about the issue — which he was already somewhat familiar with — and then that evolved into the idea of gay Republicans. Both of us were very curious about how they do that — how they reconcile their orientation with their political values.

Then I got a call this fall asking if I'd like to do another episode. I didn't know what it was about. But when I got the script, it was all about what Aaron and I had discussed. And in the course of the episode, my character, Congressman Skinner, comes out as gay.

PlanetOut: Even before he came out, was it your understanding that Skinner was a gay, albeit closeted, character?

CL: No. There was nothing to indicate that in the material that I had done before.

PlanetOut: Why does Skinner, as a gay man, support the Marriage Recognition Act?

CL: Well, it's interesting. Being a gay man myself and a Democrat, it was an interesting challenge to get inside the mind of a man who is gay and who would support something like this. The beauty of Aaron's writing is that he doesn't write black-and-white characters. They're not good guys and bad guys. Everybody he writes has a real, credible humanity. And he makes a case for Skinner, because Skinner gets challenged on the episode. People ask him how he can be a member of a party that disagrees with who he is. The upshot of it is — as my character talks about — that he has a lot of other priorities; his life isn't all about being a homosexual.

PlanetOut: Did you feel that how your character dealt with these conflicts was true to life, true to how gay Republicans might really feel?

CL: To tell you the truth, I don't know a lot about it. I know people who are gay Republicans, but I haven't had this conversation with them. I haven't really gotten into it. But the way that it was brought out in the episode made it make more sense to me than it ever had before. I felt it was a window inside the experience that I had never thought of. In fact, it made me more curious and made me want to have these dialogues. That's what I'm hoping the show will do — foster dialogue between very polarized elements of the gay community.

PlanetOut: What kinds of insights did you think you gained into the experience of a gay Republican?

CL: It is a very polarized situation. We, as gay Democrats, are [often seen as] the good guys, and gay Republicans are the bad guys. But I went online to the Log Cabin Republicans' site, and there's some very interesting stuff there. It's not just a black-and-white issue. I believe that there's a way for us to come together and be truly interested in the philosophy that the "other side" holds. Being polarized is not to anyone's advantage.

There are a lot of one-issue voters in this country. My parents, for example, vote for anyone who is anti-abortion. I think in the gay community people can vote similarly; anyone who is for a certain list of issues will get their vote. But I don't believe that gay Republicans are all bad guys. Some of them have larger issues, and the idea of infiltrating and effecting some change from within the Republican Party has some merit. I'm not saying that they're all brilliant at it. But there are people who are working in that way, and they have their eye on a bigger picture. That should not be discounted.

PlanetOut: How was Aaron, as a straight, liberal man, able to get such a good window into the experience of a gay Republican?

CL: Well, all I can say is that I've seen his work, and I've seen him in operation on the set, and he's a brilliant artist. He writes for people from real life. I think he was turned on by the fact that I was a gay man who was active on this issue. He tends to write from what he knows and from the people he has cast in these roles. And that's what the best writing is — writing from real-life experience. He's a wizard at that. I've never seen anything like it.

PlanetOut: So far this season, The West Wing has done an episode on which a Dr. Laura-like character was berated for her anti-gay views. And now they're tackling this topic. It seems like a very gay-positive show. Was that your experience working on the set?

CL: Yes. The two episodes I did last year didn't have that element. But this time around, there's an openly gay director directing this episode. And Aaron himself, while not a gay man, is incredibly gay-friendly. When you're shooting, there's a crew of 50, and for some of them it might have been a challenge. But I didn't feel the effects of that. And it's the trickle-down theory: When it comes from the top, it's the sort of feeling and attitude that everyone has.

From Raleigh to “The West Wing”

By ADRIENNE M. JOHNSON
The News & Observer, Raleigh, NC

Emily Procter is the latest addition to the Emmy Award-winning White House drama.

As Ainsley Hayes on NBC's "The West Wing," Emily Procter plays a smart, confident Harvard-trained outsider, a right-wing Tar Heel shaking up the left-leaning politicos in the White House.

But as herself, Procter mixes those smarts and that confidence with a near-honeysuckle sweetness. She's unaffected enough to find her adventures in Hollywood "exciting" and "amazing." She's modest enough to wonder whether she was any good on last week's episode. She's thoughtful enough to appreciate the near-decade-long wait for this part and the fact that it could be a turning point.

And Procter, a 32-year-old Raleigh native, is generous enough to laugh at the idea that some think her Southern roots are false.

"A lot of people are writing in and saying my accent sounds fake," Procter says. "It's funny, I've always hated when non-Southerners were in movies doing Southern accents. I guess this is my payback."

Over the phone from Los Angeles, Procter's voice does sound a little more down home. But as she points out, she's a different person on "The West Wing." Plus, her tongue is tackling the near-jazz verse that writer-creator Aaron Sorkin pens. "His language is so rhythmic," Procter says. "It's so much fun."

The trip from North Carolina to a fictional D.C. has been lined with fits, starts and serendipity. As a child, Procter says she dreamed of being an actress, "but in the way when you're little you want to be a fireman or a princess." She graduated from Ravenscroft and headed to East Carolina University in 1991 — three years after Sandra Bullock left — majoring in broadcast.

"I took an introduction to acting class," she says. "I tried to get into the theater department, but it was full so I just gave up."

Instead, she became a weather anchor at WITN in Greenville and ended up spending a lot of time watching television. "One day, I thought, 'You know these people have a really good gig,' " she says, laughing at her naivete. " 'How hard could that possibly be?' "

Within two months of graduation, Procter was bound for New York. But a call from fellow Raleigh-born actress Sharon Lawrence changed her plans.

"I have no idea to this day how she got my number," Procter says. "She said, 'I heard you were moving to New York to start an acting career. I'm going to save you five years — move to L.A.' " Procter took Lawrence's advice.

Although she had never been West, Procter's parents were supportive. "In hindsight, I can't even believe how they were," she says. Her father, comparing her experience to graduate school, offered to pay for two years of acting classes.

After arriving in Los Angeles in 1991, Procter's first jobs were as an extra. Though the hours could be long, the work mind-numbing and the pay low, it eventually earned her a Screen Actors Guild card. With it she won a speaking part on "Great Scott," Fox's short-lived 1992 comedy starring then-unknown Tobey Maguire. Her line: "A carton of eggs."

"I practiced it for so long," she says, going over the different inflections she tried. "I was happy to be at work."

Procter did a lot of pilots that never aired. She had small parts in the films "Leaving Las Vegas" and "Jerry Maguire." She did an episode of "Lois & Clark" and another of "Friends." Then in 1997, she landed the leading female role in "Breast Men," an HBO movie starring "Friends" star David Schwimmer and Chris Cooper ("American Beauty").

Contending with the ups and downs of show business hasn't been easy. Procter says she'd vow to quit on a daily basis.

"I hate the term 'overnight success,' because there's no such thing," she says. "A realistic time frame is eight to 10 years. It's a slow walk. The way I see it is you get in line and wait until it's your turn and you study so when it is your turn, you're ready."

Still, 1999 wasn't a bad year. Procter had roles in four films, including "Guinevere" and "Body Shots." At the end of the last television season, she heard that the producers of "The West Wing" were adding a character. "My big joke with my agent was, 'I'm going to be that new character on "The West Wing," right?' " Getting the part would mean the opportunity to be on a critically acclaimed show with crackerjack actors and literary writing. Not to mention a huge weekly audience.

She had to audition three or four times. ("It's a blur because I never thought I would get to read or get the part.") The first time, she so enjoyed the performance of her reading partner that she told him, "You're really good!" She didn't know it was Sorkin. "Thank God, I didn't know or I wouldn't have been able to do it."

The second time she knew that not only Sorkin was in the room, but also producer John Wells ("ER" and "Third Watch") and producer-director Tommy Schlamme ("Sports Night"). She admitted her nervousness to them, "which is a terrible thing for an actor to say." They were nice about it, but she left thinking she wouldn't get the part anyway.

In the end she went up for the part against three women she either knew personally or knew their work. "I just said a prayer that I would do my best," she says. "I felt really good about it afterward."

Some have wondered whether the Ainsley character is based on political pundit Kelly Anne Fitzpatrick. Procter says she was told Ainsley is an amalgam of several people. Ainsley wasn't from North Carolina at first, either. After Procter got the job, Sorkin asked her whether she would like the character to be a Tar Heel. She replied with an emphatic "yes." "It was like score one for the home team," she says. Her family didn't find out until the show aired.

Procter says she's still adjusting to playing the part. "Because Ainsley is a bit of a different instrument inside the White House, part of me feels like one of these things is not like the others," she says. "I'm trying to get comfortable with that.

"But she is such an amazing character. She's representing the right wing; at the same time, she's really an American. She's not just taking an extreme view — it's what she believes. It inspires me to be more of a patriot."

On the other hand, she has had little trouble adjusting to being the newcomer on a multiple Emmy—winning show. There was no hazing, she says, only graciousness. Cast members even offered to rehearse scenes they weren't in with her.

In fact, on her second day, she was resting on a deck near the actors' trailers when she heard a noise she couldn't identify. She followed the sound to the door of Dule Hill, who plays Charlie Young, the president's personal aide. It turned out that Hill, a master tap dancer who has appeared on Broadway in "The Tap Dance Kid" and "Bring In 'Da Noise, Bring In 'Da Funk," was practicing on a tap board.

"I got to watch him dance," she says, and on the phone it sounds like she's smiling. "I lay on the floor and watched his feet. That moment I felt I was having a complete creative experience. The show is fulfilling and artful even though it is mass-produced."

Ainsley will be on tonight's "West Wing" episode, and then she'll disappear until the episode after Christmas. After that, Procter says, she'll appear off and on "until it emerges what Ainsley is going to do."

Because Sorkin doesn't write scripts in advance, Procter doesn't have a clue what will happen. While some see sparks between Ainsley and Sam Seaborn (played by Rob Lowe), the actress doesn't know if there will be a fire.

But would she like there to be? "Are you kidding? Yeah!"

Although she's finding her place in Hollywood, Procter says North Carolina is still home. "I come back about six times a year." she says. Her parents still live in Raleigh, but her father doesn't want their names mentioned in the media. "This is her success," he says.

Procter says she dreams of a bi-coastal life — half a year in L.A., the other months at the North Carolina shore. In the meantime, she's trying to protect her home state from interlopers.

"When people ask 'How's North Carolina?' I say, 'You should never go there. It's terrible, you should stay out,' " she says, laughing. "We're nice, uncorrupted, our values are intact. We don't need any people to lead us astray."

WW Veteran: Rick Cleveland

How an Emmy script became a second chance.

By RICK CLEVELAND
Written By the Magazine of the Writers Guild of America

When I was 23 years old and still very much a struggling playwright in Chicago, my father passed away of complications due to liver failure. I hadn't seen him in almost 10 years. A Korean War veteran with an alcohol addiction that got the better of us all, he spent the last years of his life living in flophouses and on the street, passing his days riding the same city bus line he himself used to drive.

I made the long drive back to Ohio to arrange his funeral. He was buried in the military section of a small cemetery in Brooklyn, Ohio. At the time there wasn't even enough money to give him a full-blown gravesite ceremony, and my uncle, my sister, and I helped a couple of workman unload and carry his casket off the back of a pickup truck in the rain.

Many months later, when I finally had the courage to go through what few personal items he left us, I found his military records and mementos. He had served in the Marine Corps with the First Infantry Division of the Second Battalion during the Korean conflict from 1950 to 1953. He came home a Staff Sergeant, blew almost all his muster pay in a three-day poker game, and then went to work in a factory making corrugated cardboard boxes and later as a bus driver. Among his military decorations were a Good Conduct Medal, a Presidential Unit Citation, a United Nations Service Citation, and a Purple Heart. I didn't know it at the time but subsequently found out that I could have had him buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

For a long time I thought I might try and track down all my father's old war buddies to see if anyone could actually remember him from a time in his life that must have in some significant way shaped the hard-luck case he would become. He was my father, and I didn't know (not many people did for that matter) his story. I still think I might do it, but for the time being my own life keeps getting in the way.

In 1995, shortly after its commemoration, I visited the Korean War Memorial in Washington, D.C., and the place has haunted me ever since.

A West Wing Veteran

Last year I worked as a coproducer on the writing staff of The West Wing, and the earliest draft of my first episode was titled "Bellwether," which was the name of the episode's problem cat I had given the First Lady as a pet. (I also hoped that as a title it might prove to be a good omen for scripts written by other members of the writing staff.) The cat never made the final cut of that episode and the title got changed, but my "A" story about Toby's (Richard Schiff's character) attempts to get a homeless Korean War veteran buried in Arlington stayed. So did some funny stuff I wrote about Stephen Jay Gould's opinions about the upcoming millennium, as did some stuff about C.J. (Allison Janney) discovering that her Secret Service code name was Flamingo. (Actually, my wife came up with that--a lot of my best stuff I steal directly from her, and so far, God bless her, she's been inclined to let me get away with it.)

On Sunday, September 10, 2000, the day my twin sons, Gus and Charlie, turned 18 months old, I won an Emmy for cowriting the above-described episode, now titled "In Excelcis Deo." That day also happened to be my grandmother's birthday, as well as my wife's grandparents' wedding anniversary.

You might not remember me from that night. I was the guy wearing the little wire-framed glasses, standing directly behind Aaron Sorkin. I had a dumbfounded smirk on my face, and I imagine I must've looked a little like a member of Sorkin's security detail. When he was done speaking, he kind of ushered me offstage with him, and, dumbly, I followed.

Backstage, at the table where they ask you to sign your name in the book so you can take your Emmy home with you, Sorkin was standing, busy watching [director, co-executive producer] Tommy Schlamme's acceptance speech on one of the monitors. The nice lady behind the table looked at me and said, "Mr. Sorkin is going to have to sign for his Emmy." I realized at that moment that she must have thought that I was Sorkin's publicist or assistant. I looked at her kind of sheepishly and said, "Aren't we supposed to get two of them?" She looked at her book and saw the second name in that category--my name. She looked back up at me and said, "Is Mr. Cleveland here this evening?"

You know when you've just been dealt a somewhat humiliating or embarrassing blow, and it doesn't occur to you what you could have said or should have said until afterward? This for me was one of those nights. It just happened to happen in front of 40 million people--and then it happened again backstage.

Keeping in mind the notion that the best quarterback is a Monday morning quarterback, if I had it to do over, this is what I would have done differently. I would have waited until Sorkin was done thanking everyone for their work on the pilot. And when he stepped away and headed off into the wings, I would've boldly stepped up to the microphone and said the following:

"Hi, I'm Rick Cleveland. And I just wanted to take a moment to thank the other writers on The West Wing staff. Paul Redford, Peter Parnell, Lawrence O'Donnell Jr., Diana Son, Laura Glasser, Jeff Reno, and Ron Osbourne. They read all my early drafts. They all gave me great notes, and I share this honor with each."

And then if I was feeling cocky and didn't hear the music starting to swell in an attempt to cut me off, I would have thanked the following: John Wells, Tommy Schlamme, and the cast; I might have singled out Richard Schiff for carrying what was essentially my father's story with such quiet and moving grace; my agents at UTA, Larry Salz, Sue Nagle, and Elana Barry; my wife, Mary, for both putting up with me and believing in me, for giving me our three beautiful children, and for coming up with C.J.'s Secret Service nickname.

I would've wished my grandmother a happy birthday and Ada and Rudolph Kohnert (my wife's grandparents) a happy anniversary. And then I would've thanked my mom, back in Ohio. She always wanted to be a writer but wound up working pretty much her whole life as a drill press operator, a steel mill worker, and a long-term caregiver for people with Alzheimer's.

And then, last but not least, I would have remembered my dad.

Rick Cleveland is a producer and writer on Alan Ball's forthcoming HBO series, Six Feet Under, which premieres in January.

Inside The West Wing’s New World

By SHARON WAXMAN
Photographs by Bryce Duffy
George Magazine

No matter who wins on November 7, The West Wing will still rule. But impresario Aaron Sorkin isn’t taking any chances. He’s putting some Republican spin on his liberal pitch.

Election? What election?

The West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin is tipped back in his chair, feet propped on the desk, Merit cigarette in one hand, the other running through the fringe of brown hair that makes him seem — mmmm, what is it? Nervous?

No, cautious. Kind of like a politician.

“If Bush is elected in November, I can’t imagine how it would affect the show at all,” Sorkin declares with deliberate nonchalance. “It hasn’t played in my mind at all.”

Of course it hasn’t. Why would the fact that there could be radical changes in the political culture in Washington — the backdrop of his popular show — cause Sorkin the smallest moment of concern? Why would the fact that his show is currently embraced by the entire media and political elite as a fantasy version of the Clinton White House — not an Al Gore or a George W. Bush White House — cause him the slightest hiccup of indigestion?

The West Wing has never been more flush. It has not only brought NBC critical acclaim plus 13 million literate, upscale viewers every week, but when Sorkin’s cast members visit the nation’s capital, they are — as he puts it — “more popular than the Beatles.” His actors were the stars of the Democratic National Convention in August, and in September they triumphed at the Emmys, where The West Wing won nine statues, compared with only one for its rival drama, The Sopranos.

So the reality that a new administration is about to sweep into Washington — perhaps a conservative GOP administration with a thick Texas drawl — is no cause for concern, right? “It’s silly. Ridiculous,” Sorkin says, holed up in his office on the Warner Bros. lot, writing episode five of the new season.

Sorkin adds that he’s tired of the people who say that his characters are drawn from real life — that fictional deputy chief of staff Josh Lyman (Bradley Whitford) is derivative of former White House aide Paul Begala; that hunky, single speechwriter Sam Seaborn (Rob Lowe) is inspired by single former Clinton aide George Stephanopoulos; or that neurotic press secretary C.J. Cregg (Allison Janney) is somehow related to former Clinton press secretary Dee Dee Myers, one of Sorkin’s script consultants.

“Those connections are really nonsense,” Sorkin continues. “I’m a fiction writer. I make those people up.”

Whew, well, that’s a relief.

So Sorkin obviously won’t mind if we hear what Martin Sheen, who plays President Josiah Bartlet, has to say about George W., the real-life Republican candidate (Caution: Step back from flying invective):

“I think he’s a bully. I don’t think he has any heart. That scares me,” says Sheen heatedly, hunched over some melting frozen yogurt in a mess tent on location in downtown Los Angeles. The show has set up in a parking lot for a shoot at a veterans’ hall. It is Sheen’s sixtieth birthday and he is wearing a T-shirt that reads, what’s next? — the mantra of his television character.

He’s not done. “I’ve seen him. I’ve watched him — he’s like a bad comic working the crowd,” Sheen goes on. “He’s too angry. He talks too loud. He’s acting compassionate — it’s not real. It’s not there.”

Pause. “I think he’s full of shit, frankly.”

Sheen is not too hot on Republicans in general. He says: “If a Republican showed me a heart, I’d respond to that heart. I have not seen much heart coming from Republicans.”

Sheen is not the only rabidly anti-Republican cast member. Listen to Whitford, who offhandedly describes himself as “a white-bread pinko liberal.” Whitford is livid that during one of the primary debates, Bush dared to name Jesus as the political philosopher who has influenced him the most.

“You offer up Jesus Christ in a debate — and then you execute more people than the other governors combined?” Whitford rages, lounging in his trailer between takes.

“Do you really believe that Jesus, who himself was killed because of the death penalty, would be pro-death penalty? I think Bush is a hypocrite, and I think he’s proudly uninformed.”

If it isn’t exactly a revelation that the producers and cast of The West Wing are liberals — this is Hollywood, after all — it is still rather curious that no one seems to think that a Bush victory would affect the show in any way. Won’t they at least need new parking permits when they go to D.C., or something?

“It will make no difference,” affirms Whitford, echoing the sentiments of Sorkin and most others in the cast. “West Wing is first and foremost about relationships, about people — the backdrop is politics.” And yet, for all the reluctance to admit that a change in administration might matter, West Wing has been making moves to the contrary — getting ready for whomever gets elected — and whatever the new administration might bring.

If Al Gore wins, the shift in the political culture may be subtle, though even Clinton’s heir apparent will bring his own style and tone, not to mention his own staff, to the White House. But if George W. wins, there will be nothing less than a seismic shift in the capital. And in that case, the cast of The West Wing may feel less like the Beatles when they visit D.C. and more like...the Flintstones.

Maybe it is just pure coincidence, but The West Wing has hired two high-profile Republicans as consultants this season: former Reagan and Bush press secretary Marlin Fitzwater and former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan.

Was Fitzwater surprised to get the offer? He was. “They probably wanted a Republican viewpoint,” he says.

Not so, says Sorkin: “They’re very smart people. They were hired not so much for their Republicanness as much as for their wisdom.”

Coincidence, too, that there will be a new character introduced to the White House staff — a blond, leggy, in-your-face Republican adviser called Ainsley Hayes (played by Emily Procter)? She may remind some of the blond, leggy, in-your-face Republicans like Laura Ingraham and Ann Coulter who pop up and pop off on the talking-head circuit.

Wait a minute. An Ingraham or a Coulter huddled over policy options with a Clinton in the Roosevelt Room? What could Aaron Sorkin be thinking?

“Ainsley Hayes has an extraordinary sense of duty. When her president asks her to serve, she agrees,” Sorkin says, grinning in his it’s-my-world-get-used-to-it sort of way. “Which makes her perfect for us.”

Sorkin says he’s relishing the upcoming tension between his Republican addition to the White House staff and the Democratic regulars. In fact, he’s asked returning consultant Dee Dee Myers for a memo on how the White House staff might torture the new recruit.

Myers’s answers:

They could stick her in a horrible office. David Gergen, a Reagan and Nixon consultant who joined the Clinton staff, was put in the old White House barbershop.

The White House cafeteria might refuse service to the newcomer. You can’t eat there if the proper paperwork hasn’t been filled out.

And it’s easy to get lost in the White House if no one guides you.

Political shows have long been considered ratings poison in prime time, and Sorkin took an even greater risk by writing a political drama with a distinct point of view, the Democratic one. Whitford says Sorkin made a good pragmatic choice: It’s better TV. “People respond to progressive Demo crats,” he says. “It’s more heroic to fight for civil rights legislation than a tax cut.”

But there’s also a more personal angle to the decision.

At age 11, Sorkin volunteered to help out at George McGovern headquarters, mostly to impress a girl in his class. Incumbent Richard Nixon was on his way to White Plains, New York, for a rally, and the McGovern volunteers were deployed with signs that read, mcgovern for president. Just as Nixon’s motorcade came around the bend, an old lady came up behind Sorkin, grabbed his sign, beaned him with it, and then stomped on it.

Part of him, Sorkin says, has been trying to get back at that lady ever since.

Whatever the motivation, The West Wing has become that rarest of rarities on the pop-culture landscape: a zeitgeist show, a reflection of the tenor of our times.

“Every three or four years, a show hits a pop sensibility,” says The West Wing co-executive producer John Wells, who produced another blockbuster hit, ER. “People forget that ER came on in the middle of the Clinton health care debate. When we were on the cover of Newsweek, the headline was, ‘A health care plan that really works.’ That was what we tapped into.

“And that’s what happened when West Wing came on. We’d reached a point in the culture where we assumed that people who want to choose public service have the basest of motives of self-aggrandizement and financial gain.”

However, Wells believes that the public knows intuitively that not all politicians are like that.

He says, “The public wants to believe in the political process, wants to believe in politicians. Wants to believe that the people who are leading us are doing so — even if there are ideological differences — to make the country better.”

Slowly, subtly, The West Wing has become as much a reflection of the current White House as a reflection upon it. Last winter, Sorkin wrote a moving episode about the death penalty in which a tormented President Bartlet decided not to commute the execution of a federal prisoner. This summer, Clinton went the other way — choosing to postpone the execution of federal prisoner Juan Raul Garza, on whose case the episode was based.

Near the end of last season, The West Wing featured a story about campaign finance reform, with Bartlet deciding to buck special interests and appoint reformers to the Federal Election Commission. The New York Times then wrote an editorial proclaiming that Washington should imitate The West Wing.

The West Wing has detractors, and they consider the show corny. “Human beings? These characters aren’t human beings — they’re noble soldiers in a noble cause, and they have been washed clean of every impurity because of it,” sneered writer John Podhoretz in a cover story in the conservative Weekly Standard last March. But most of the press reaction has been glowing. For its admirers, The West Wing has become an example of television that can entertain and educate and — in some measure — elevate viewers above the prevailing forces of political cynicism and ennui.

The show is particularly appreciated in Washington these days, where public servants often see themselves as underpaid and underappreciated. Nowhere was this fan base more in evidence than at the Democratic convention in Los Angeles. The West Wing party on the show’s Warner Bros. set the Sunday before the convention — ostensibly a thank-you gift from the show to those in the capital who’ve helped them — was a who’s who of Hollywood meets Washington. Everyone — including Clinton chief of staff John Podesta, Chelsea Clinton, Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), and the editors of the Washington Post — were oohing and aahing at the authenticity of the ceiling-less Oval Office.

Even Republicans consider The West Wing a guilty pleasure. “I was prepared not to like it because it was about my sacred White House,” says Fitzwater. “But from the second show on, I’ve loved it. It very accurately portrays so many elements of presidential life — the frantic urgency about issues and decisions.”

Fitzwater acknowledges that the show has detractors in the GOP. “‘Yes, it’s liberal-oriented,’ I tell all my conservative friends, ‘but that’s the way the presidency works,’” he says. “And the truth is, my friends all love the show.”

Over at Building 146 on the Warner Bros. lot, the signs of a show in its successful second season are everywhere. Outside, a 2000 black Porsche Carrera, top down, is gleaming in the ‘A. Sorkin’ reserved parking spot. His office has been transferred from the small, hutch-like suite it was in last year to a sprawling second-floor lair. The design is aggressively masculine — wooden desks, leather sofas, framed maps, and forest-green walls — lots of expensive stuff for a writer who spends most of his life occupied by his Power Mac, gummy bears, and Merits. There is a bar — Art Deco, stacked with unused martini glasses — and an of-the-moment U-Line stainless-steel fridge.

There is also a publicist occupying a back corner of the office, yet another nod to the show’s newly acquired media heft. The seat-of-the-pants ethos of season one — when a visitor could wander from the set to the writing offices and back again — is long gone.

On the wall closest to Sorkin’s desk is a bulletin board with memos about story elements for whatever episode he’s writing. The elements come from the writing staff and Sorkin’s political strategists, who include, in addition to Fitzwater, Noonan, and Myers, Democratic consultant Pat Caddell and Lawrence O’Donnell, a former aide to Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.). Sorkin rewrites every line that’s given to him, but the staff provides the material that makes up the substance of the show. Sorkin keeps their memos and research papers in a blue binder that he calls, with great feeling, “a book of goodness.”

Despite the death penalty show and a few others, Sorkin says he generally tries not to rip ideas from the headlines. “But every once in a while we want to remind you of something in reality,” he notes. The driving force of the show is Sorkin’s larger message about politics and public service — his deep, and deeply sentimental, sense of patriotism. In July, people from The West Wing were invited to a Los Angeles Dodgers baseball game, and Richard Schiff caught Sorkin staring, enraptured, at the sight of a row of American flags rippling in the breeze of the stadium.

“‘Look how beautiful that is,’” Schiff recalls Sorkin saying. “It struck me how much that man loves America, loves the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence. If a Republican president comes in, that’s not going to change. We’re more like a White House world that he’d like to see.”

Indeed, one West Wing staffer — speaking on condition of anonymity — says, “Aaron Sorkin really doesn’t like Clinton. He’s very convincing on this subject.”

The question is put to Sorkin: Does he despise Clinton? Sorkin laughs, then squirms in silence.

Finally, he protests weakly: “I like Bill Clinton. I voted for Bill Clinton twice. It would be silly for me to say anything more than that.”

Beyond his political sentimentality, it is Sorkin’s unerring dramatic instincts that shape the show. Even as a kid growing up in Scarsdale, New York, sneaking into Manhattan to go to the theater, Sorkin found he had an ear for the ebb and flow of dialogue, a knack for sensing the emotional hinge between serious and comic.

He dreamed of being an actor and majored in musical theater at Syracuse University. But then he began to write, starting with A Few Good Men, a play about a snotty Navy lawyer who learns the value of public service. It was based on a case he learned about from his sister, a Navy lawyer. The play was on Broadway before being bought for the movies by director Rob Reiner, who cast Tom Cruise as the lawyer and Jack Nicholson as the corrupt colonel. Reiner then commissioned Sorkin to write the romantic comedy The American President, starring Michael Douglas and Annette Bening, which took the writer on research visits to the White House.

That, in turn, propelled Sorkin to write a TV pilot, a behind-the-scenes drama/comedy about the White House — which sat ignored on the desks of network executives for two years. Meanwhile, Sorkin wrote Sports Night for ABC, a behind-the-scenes dramedy about a sports news show. After the Monica Lewinsky scandal, with its media frenzy, NBC thought there might be an audience for politics after all. And The West Wing was born.

In last season’s cliff-hanger finale, a fusillade of bullets felled the presidential entourage as Bartlet left a speaking engagement. The faces of three teenage skinheads in the crowd were identified as the perpetrators.

“So what’s next?” Sorkin is asked during the summer. Who are the survivors? And what about romance? Will Josh date his secretary? Will C.J. get married to reporter Danny Concannon? Will presidential daughter Zoe carry on her interracial romance with presidential gofer Charlie?

And what about President Bartlet’s multiple sclerosis?

Sorkin, canny dramatist that he is, says we will have to wait until the end of a two-hour episode to learn how badly the victims were hurt. He also says that Anna Deavere Smith (who played the White House spokeswoman in The American President) will join the cast as the new national security adviser. Finally, we will see no more of Moira Kelly as political consultant Mandy (and no, of course she had no connection to real-life Clinton consultant Mandy Grunwald).

Other than that, Sorkin says, he doesn’t know exactly where the show is going, since he’s only up to episode five. He says he writes an episode for eight days at a stretch, and takes about five minutes to pat himself on the back before plunging into the next script.

The central conflict of the episode he is working on involves the president and his wife, played by Stockard Channing (who had a memorable showdown with Bartlet during the first season: “You don’t handle me, Jed!”). They are trying to find time in their schedules to...have sex.

“The writers came to me and said, ‘Here’s an idea you’re gonna hate. But sleep on it,’” says Sorkin, pulling off his geek-chic horn-rimmed glasses and rocking back in the leather chair behind his desk. The locks that fall across his forehead are brown, but his sideburns have gone grey. He is lean, wearing a green, button-down polo shirt and jeans, and chain-smoking. “They were right. It seemed silly to me.” Pause. “And now I’m having the best time writing the story.”

Does he think it wise to mix the presidency with sex given, y’know, the Clinton thing? “Well, you think about it,” he acknowledges, “but I have faith in the show.... I believe that people will see episode five with Martin Sheen trying to have sex with Stockard Channing and not say, ‘Well, why doesn’t he just grab an intern in the hallway?’”

Dee Dee Myers has given Sorkin a memo detailing appointments that might keep a first lady busy (and thus unavailable for sex). Myers has suggested a dedication of a statue, among other things, which Sorkin has seized upon. He plans to have the first lady lecture the president for his offhand put-down of the statue subject, nineteenth-century journalist-adventurer Nellie Bly.

There are other strands in the works: one about military readiness in which press secretary C.J. faces down a general. There’s also a story line related to the civil rights activist organization Southern Poverty Law Center, which Sorkin declines to discuss. Could it relate to our skinhead shooters?

The new Republican-era consultants are providing more than political balance. They bring with them behind-the-scenes anecdotes from previous administrations. Fitzwater, for example, who had an extraordinary 10-year run with Reagan and Bush, has already detailed an insider’s version of Boris Yeltsin’s first visit to the White House. Yeltsin was in Parliament at the time, challenging Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. He wanted to meet President Bush, but the president thought Gorbachev would take offense if he received Yeltsin in the Oval Office.

“Yeltsin refused to come in the building, in effect, unless he could meet the president,” Fitz water recalls. A compromise was struck: Yeltsin agreed to meet Bush in the national security adviser’s office, “so he could say he met the president and we could say he never got into the Oval Office.”

Sorkin loves the anecdote — and says it may show up in an episode. Still, he insists that he has no GOP-inspired contingency themes for after the election. Bartlet is Bartlet, he’s a Democrat, he’ll stay in power.

“I don’t want to overstate our impact,” says Caddell. “We’re a TV show, after all. But a lot of people in politics and the press watch it intensely. I think its [influence is] more on a subconscious level than a conscious one.”

“It’s pretty easy to get too big for your britches,” Sorkin demurs. “There’s so much praise being heaped on us. It’s easy to start believing it.” He pauses and plays again with his glasses. “A show that got this much praise this fast is setting itself up for an ass-kicking,” he finally offers. “We’d like to not hasten it at all by suggesting that we’re good for you: like, ‘Thank God we came along to tell you what to think about this — and Barbra Streisand will be out in a minute.’”

The magnitude of The West Wing’s influence hit cast members when they were given a tour of the actual West Wing on the night of President Clinton’s last State of the Union speech. The moment was already surreal enough, and suddenly the president dropped by to chitchat and suggested a story line: something having to do with a journalist and an information leak.

Sheen also sensed the show’s power when they were shooting late at night in Georgetown and making a bit too much of a commotion for the neighbors. A middle-aged lady came down to inquire about the noise. And by the way, she said, why the heck doesn’t the show have a secretary of state? And it should be a woman, she added.

The woman with the complaint was Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.