So, as you may have guessed from a few references that have crept in, we watched the first season of the West Wing via DVD from Netflix.

Other people have spoken about the wit of the "walk and talk" dialogue. I find the care and attention to detail very high (and it's usually in my fannishly pilpul way that I notice such things).

Example: There's an episode where a State dinner is being given by President Bartlet for the President of Indonesia. There's a bit of kerfluffle between the two governments, and the McGuffin is that there's a member of the kitchen staff (shades of Dave Sim) who speaks Portugese and... Whatever the Indonesian language was. Not Bahasa, something else. And I remember thinking, "Portugese? Why would -- Ah. He's from East Timor." No real big play is made on this point, it's just a minor bit of the larger plot, from a Hollywood viewpoint there's no need to make a subtle reference to East Timor, which only earlier that year (1999) had had its violent dispute with Indonesia... But Aaron Sorkin, the writer, put it in there anyway.

I was mentioning this to Randy Byers a while back, and he observed that he'd noticed a bit in one episode where they talked about the Pacific island Yap. A few times, even. And as someone who'd lived on Yap, he was surprised it was all accurate.

Yep.

Two things, though:

Here's a speech by Toby, the Director of Communications (a job currently held by Dan Bartlett -- no, prior to this, I'd never heard of him, either. He picked up the job after Karen Hughes). I'll let Toby talk:

"I understand you all had a very interesting evening... So did I... I met an unusual man. He didn't walk in to the room with a political agenda, he didn't walk in with his mind made up. He genuinely wanted to do what he thought was best. He didn't mind using the words, 'I don't know.'"

That's what I think politics can be, at its best. And to me the greatest crime in the current coverage of public life, in which we all take part, one way or another, is to obscure that.

Here's another piece of dialogue I love. President Bartlet is speaking to someone thinking of going into politics:

"Do you have a best friend?"

"Yes."

"Is he smarter than you?"

"Yes."

"Would you trust him with your life?"

"Yes."

"That's your Chief of Staff."

*^*^*

What I find revealing here is that Andy Card, the present White House Chief of Staff, probably fills in no more than one of those questions with Mr. Bush. He reads much more like he should be George H.W. Bush's Chief of Staff, than anyone else's. But there ya go.

(As for me, I have pecunium, should the time ever come. :)

*^*^*

Another thing that's fascinating, that I mentioned to daveon when he was between flights here:

We've also recently watched Yes, Minister on DVD.

What's interesting is, the US TV series about politics the public has chosen to embrace portrays the administration as more intelligent, more caring, and more sincere than it actually is. By contrast, the UK TV series about politics the public has chosen to embrace portrays its administration as more stupid, more callous, and more cynical than it actually is.

I'm not sure what this says about the two countries -- other than obvious, Americans are rambunctious dogs, Brits are reserved cats -- but I'm sure it says something.

It's also interesting, given how many comics come from Canada and how both funny and biting they usually are, that there hasn't been a Canadian series that's comparable (that I'm aware of).