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Brooks Peterson

Brooks Peterson's column is published Mondays. Brooks also sits on the Caller-Times editorial board and can be contacted at petersonb@caller.com

Monday, October 9, 2000

The people's choice? It's no contest

Like a few million of the rest of you, I found myself last Tuesday evening hunkered down in front of a TV for the first of the three televised showdowns between Vice President Al Gore and our own Gov. George W. Bush.
   Sure enough, it went about as all the handicappers expected. Gore demonstrated that he does indeed rival Bill Clinton as a master of policy wonkery - and that, despite assurances from his pals that he's a really fun guy, he still projected a kind of prissy condescension that was distinctly off-putting.
   And then there was George W. While Gore forged relentlessly ahead, the governor seemed to fade in and out. When discussing his favorite wares - education reform, tax cuts - he showed real enthusiasm, but at other times you got the feeling he'd really rather have been somewhere else.
   So, you ask: Who's going to get my vote? Fair question. I'll dispense with the dance-of-the-seven-veils nonsense and tell you right out loud. My vote is going to . . .
   Jim Lehrer.
   OK, OK, just kidding - though I think the performance Lehrer put in was at least as impressive as the two candidates'. The moderator's slightly pained efforts to keep the debate on track put me in mind of a substitute teacher dealing with a pair of recalcitrant scholars. But . . . President Lehrer? Nah. We need his gifts where we can put them to the best possible use - mediating the Mideast peace process, for example, or sorting out the Balkans.
   All right, then. No fooling, here it comes. The coveted NewsWretch endorsement goes to . . .
   Josiah Bartlet.
   You know: the guy Martin Sheen plays on "The West Wing." President Josiah Bartlet. I mean, sure, it's only television - but it's great television.
   Before I go any further, let me confess that I'm a newcomer to the Bartlet administration. Last year, during the series' initial season, I held back, unwilling to invest more Wednesday-evening time in TV. I already had one hour blocked out for the indispensable "Law & Order." Breaking loose the time for "The West Wing" would have entailed too much of a commitment.
   During the summer, however, I incautiously tuned in - and, as John Madden would say, BAM! I was hooked.
   It would take an all but superhuman effort not to fall for Josiah Bartlet. I hear even Bill Clinton - poor ol' wife-less, increasingly clout-less Bill - is addicted to "The West Wing." Didn't he have Martin Sheen over to the White House not so long ago? If Josiah is good enough to captivate the real president of The Most Powerful Nation on the Face of the Earth . . .
   President Bartlet is the guy anyone in his/her right mind would want in the Oval Office. He's brilliant, funny, brave, decent, occasionally irascible, and human enough that we can empathize with him. A regular guy, yet . . . something more.
   There are plenty of Americans who wouldn't buy Josiah Bartlet's programs and philosophy, which could fairly be described as standard Hollywood-lib - but the guy himself? Here's the supreme irony of the thing: This fictional president, this creation wrought from whole cloth, comes across as vastly more real than anyone we've had in the office in years. And years. And years.
   So I was there Wednesday night for the big "West Wing" season-opener. And, as I expected, the two-hour episode cooked up to resolve last season's cliff-hanger finale (gunfire at a presidential appearance; who got shot?) was irritating. The producers simply used the opener as a pretext for multiple flashbacks showing how the president's warm, lovable, humane staffers came to work for him. Oh, yeah: The prez and his deputy chief of staff, Josh, got shot. Both survived. Neo-Nazi skinheads responsible.
   Now, please, can we get back to work, people? We've got a president to re-elect: Josiah Bartlet in 2000! We're on Fire For Josiah!


Brooks Peterson

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