Monday March 16th 2009 shall henceforth be known as the West Wing day although the USA TV series was not foremost in my mind when I rose from bed after a restless and at times uncomfortable night. I put out the rubbish and the environmental box of cans, bottles and newspapers/papers and then attended to e mails, played some computer games and got myself ready to go out. The mission was to investigate if Wilkinson’s had more of the black inexpensive display folders, they had one and half boxes of other colours and I needed to think about this further before proceeding. I collected the Metro free newspaper during the journey, noting this edition celebrated ten years of the service, and then that the number of High St store closures has increase by two since previously noting the changes.
At the Ship and Royal I had to made do without milk for the coffee as the delivery had not arrived, so compensated with sugar. As usual it was a large and hot cup and the roll was filled with succulent thick slices of bacon to which I added some brown sauce. It was delicious. Unusually there were a few male single drinkers and a couple doing likewise. Even a family birthday party which arrived later took to the drink. Where have all the coffee drinkers gone, I had to ask myself? I do not understanding this early morning drinking although it was after 11 so I suppose midday was approaching.
At the supermarket I bought five bananas, some prawns, a small jar of mint sauce, and two small containers, one of ginger spice and the other of Thai stir fry spice. I decided against some courgettes where there was a good offer available but in a pack of three and large sufficient for several weeks. Instead I decided to make use of a whole onion and a large red pepper with the chicken and the noodles for the stir fry. I decided caution regarding the quantity of ginger and mixed Thai Spice and will increase the quantity somewhere between 50 and 100% tomorrow. For a late lunch around 2pm I had the prawns with cucumber, lettuce and a tomato. I will buy a cucumber and tomatoes tomorrow and remember to get some sink unblocker and the water is flowing away slowly again although I have a strainer fitted which prevents from most solids from escaping.
The main work activity was to up date development work and undertake the framework of a new seven to eight set volume. Feeling tired later afternoon I decided against photography, artman glitter card creation or uploading Blogs from My Space to Google.
Three hours of the day was used on sort out nearly four hundred photos which have been scanned onto the computer in order to make a photo disk. Many of the photos were forty years old and many of the early ones were colour slides. Some of the photos has faded from exposure to sunlight and but the programme was able to reproduce the original colours as close to magic as anyone can get. I needed to first group under 15 categories and then attempt to place them in some date chronology.
During the afternoon I listened to Chris Barber records and had intended continuing up until the next episode of 24 at 9pm. However as there were lots of cut outs and I wanted to concentrate on research and some writing so I selected one of four Great British Dance Band disks from a collection of 100 tracks. Disk three features the Jack Payne Orchestra( BBC Director of Music 1932), Carroll Gibbons (Radio Luxembourg and American born) and Harry Roy(Cafe de Paris). Among the numbers were: Lets face the music and Dance; Let’s call the whole thing off; Why Stars come out at Night, The Little Things that mean so Much, Chattanooga Choo Choo and There must be a way. Other bands in this series are Lew Stone, Geraldo, Ambrose, Jack Hylton, Joe Loss, Ray Noble and Nat Gonella. While the bands came to the fore in the 1930’s they also kept spirits up during and after the war.
I also decided to go straight into the opening series of the West Wing without any prior reminding of the characters, actors or individual programme content and read up afterwards. The Pilot, called only Pilot, was screened in the USA in September 1999, that is before 9/11 and showed a democratic leaning left administration at odds with the right. I do not think I saw the first series when screened in the UK but caught up as soon as I could after being hooked immediately I saw an episode. With a political interests since late adolescence the star political series in the UK had been Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister which communicated the reality of life as a senior politician and the role and relationship with the permanent civil services but in the form of a situation comedy.
Sometimes comedy can bring an audience closer to the reality and the truths that the serious drama and the two series had plenty of political and social bite.
The acting in the West Wing is brilliant and most of leading characters won awards over the seven seasons. There are two levels of authenticity in West Wing. You are always aware of a lot of staff working hard and a lot of things happening all the time, the government role, the political roles, the presidential role and the keepers of the White House historical building, (it is more Buckingham Palace than 10 Downing Street), and the round the clock media attention to every detail. The individual stories always have credibility. In contrast I have lost patience with 24 where a stupid and inadequate President puts her emotions before the interests of her office and country(Someone like George Bush would never do that would they?). The level of incompetence of the security and intelligence stretches incredulity. I have decided not to watch the rest of the series.
The West Wing Pilot show commences during the first year of office and lacked dramatic punch, but has several amusing to funny moments. It opens as the key White House officers receive a bleeper message that POTUS has had an accident. When someone comments that it a funny name, she is told, it stands for President of the United States, who I work for!
The President has ridden a bicycle into a tree at his weekend home and this has caused great merriment among the press and House staff. His has sustained a minor injury but his pride has been hurt. The president’s health will become a major issue in later seasons.
The explanation about POTUS is given by Sam Seaborn, deputy Communications director, and played by Rob Lowe, to woman picked up at a high class and exclusive bar when chatting to a pressman, only to find in the morning that she is a professional high class call girl on £3000 dollars a night having an away day.
Although he knows he should immediately severe all links and report was has happened to his boss and to the Press Secretary decides to consult with same age and ranking deputy Chief of Staff Josh Lyneham, who gives him the same advice as their superiors when they find out, that he should have nothing further to do with the woman and hope the media do not find out and which is unlikely.
This is an important aspect of national government reality on both sides of the Atlantic. Most of the time those outside of office that is Parliamentarians and members of the Houses of Congress and the journalists they court and who court them for information before anyone else gossips about who is in and whose out, their future advancement or lack of it, rather than political theory or major policies. I make this comment based mainly on being a watcher of political commentators on TV but I have been in one the bars in the Houses of Parliament where Members and Shadow Minister’s and would be Shadow Ministers meet and listened to the talk as well known individuals came and went. The problem in the instance of Sam, is that he likes the woman but wants to be her platonic friend and wants to ignore the great spectrum of voters who would do likewise if given the opportunity, but would be committing professional and personal social ostracization(?) if they did so.
The main subject of the Pilot is Josh Lyneham, a thirties something deputy Chief of Staff. This individual is responsible the smooth running of the White House and for such other duties as required by the Chief of Staff, the most senior adviser to the President and in many respects more powerful than the Vice President. President Obama has two deputies and other Presidents have had more than one individual in post. In West Wing the part is played by Bradley Whitfield throughout the seven season series and for which he won a best supporting actor Emmy in 2001.
As we all the main characters and their actors I will do a background at some point during the experiencing of the series. The Character of Josh is an intelligent and sensitive operator who enjoys winning, achieving his tasks, and finds failure more difficult than most.
In this episode Josh in deep trouble for a reactive comment on camera in an interview involving a hard line Christian fundamentalist. There is in house and media speculation that the President will be forced to sack him and Josh half expects this because he was warned in advance not to respond to bigotry on camera. When the President arrives in on a meeting between the head of Communications Toby Ziegler played by Richard Schiff, and Josh with a group of leading Christian fundamentalists he throws them out because a religious extremist group has sent one of his daughters a malicious and offensive item through the post in a situation where he has previously called upon this leadership to reign in the activities of the group. He says he will listen to what they have to say only when they prove their effectiveness. He also warns Josh that he had used up his nine lives in one go. Toby who briefed Josh about not rising to the bait, loses it at the meeting when he perceives the leader of the group has made an anti Jewish remark. (The Director of Communication and deputy are the leading speech writers with teams of staff preparing all the speeches to be made by the President. Their main function is to direct the president’s media campaign and in this respect they have to know everything there is to know what is happening before it happens). A major figure in the series is the press front person. C J Cregg, the Press Secretary, a role which is just below that of Presidential Cabinet Member although they are often included in White House top meetings with the President and the actress playing her Allison Janney outshone all the other female characters, including Stockyard Channing, as the wife of the President and won several awards as well as playing an even greater part in the final season.
What the pilot establishes is the intensity in which everyone operates and the mutual appreciation of the environment and nature of their working activity. They are self aware of making potential history and that everything they do can effect the lives of millions of human beings as well as having a Political Party significance. At one point someone arrives on a conversation with two people who are not part of the same function and immediately twigs, “What’s going on? To which they reply, ‘nothing’’ to which the split second retort is, You are lying!’ ‘yes’ ‘want me to get out!’ ‘yep.’ Nothing more needs to be said then or later as those involved understand and have been in the same place already many time.
The other feature of the first episode and which characterised the series is the repartee and throw away asides and observations.
“I don’t want this gesture to be taken as an indication that I like you” ;
“ I’ve got a job...” “for the moment” the other mumbles.
“I have enough friends.” “ not these days you don’t” This latter exchange is between Josh and a character I have long since forgotten. This is Mandy Hampton, (played by Moira Kelly), an independent media Consultant with a staff one whose main and only client is a Senator with ambitions to run for the Presidency in four years. He is leading the opposition within the party, something which President Obama will already have been made aware of as he attempts to establish his authority and get things done rather than become a head of State figure head who is also a good talker and can win elections. There is a back story between John Lyneham and Mandy and the purpose of the lunch date is to elicit information from the feisty character who gives more than she gets at every and any opportunity.
The best line of all three opening episodes is that reported to have been said by the President that economists were put on the planet to make astrologists look good. If only President Bush, Prime Minister‘s Blair and Brown had listened we might have all been in the economic mess we are all in. I mean the academic economists and political theorists who preaches deregulation, deregulation and more deregulation
The second episodes is Post Hoc, Ergo, Propter Hoc, which means that because one event occurs before another it does not mean that it has caused the second event or that there is any significant relationship between the two. It is a statement made by the President, A President who knows Latin!
This episode continues part of the introduction to series and to get to know the main characters and their interaction. The only flow over is that Sam has continued his platonic relationship with the call girl and is torn off several strips by C J but it is not until the next episode that an experienced house journalist of seven years alerts CJ that if he knows so do others.
What appears to be the main event of the episode is the role and conflicts between the President and Vice President. It has become a traditional feature of Presidential campaigns that the President picks a Vice President in order to bring on side, political wings and interests within the political party and nation where he (or she in time hopefully) has less appeal or experience. However once in the Oval office power and attention centres on the President and his team and not on the Vice President, someone who in effect is a heart beat away from becoming President. They have usually been major figures in the party, often a Presidential candidate and retain such ambitions. They do not want to be the President in waiting without power to attending to whatever the President does not want to do or has not time to do.
In this episode the Vice President has made a public remark which is disloyal to the President and CJ is sent to pass on the concern and prevent a rift widening. She is treated with contempt by the Vice President who suggests she should have spoken to his press secretary rather than approach him direct. She covers for this slight when reporting back, but Chief of Staff Leo McGarry (John Spencer) realises she is covering up for what happened and summons the Vice President to see him and advise that when a member of the President’s team comes to see him they represent the President, He is told to be loyal or find out just how difficult and boring the job of Vice President can be.
I have known of two situations in real life where action was taken in a similar type of situation to bore an individual out of a job. In one instance a deputy commenced to show disloyalty, especially when the top person brought in a third level person with whom they had a better rapport. The deputy was not unknown to invite junior members of staff into the office for a chat as they were bored and had nothing to do.. In the other a chief officer and in fact the head of a local authority management refused to accept the detailed control imposed by the political leadership and the individual argued when sticking to their guns that unless rules were broken or some misdemeanour committed, there was nothing which could be done Technically this was accurate and the individual could not be dismissed but with great glee I was told that the solution was to transfer all the functions to others leaving the individual with no staff, powers or actual work to occupy their time and eventually another post was obtained for which a good reference was given!
The other story in this episode is the success Josh has in brokering a deal with the rebel Senator who stops his campaign for the sake of party unity. This outrages his combatant media consultant, and Josh Lyneham‘s former girl friend and who in disgust sacks her one and only client. There is a brilliant exchange between and her one staff member over the implications of the temper tantrum in which she reminds that she had a degree, a masters and a PHD and should be called Doctor in order to bolster her self esteem as everything she has worked for comes crashing down. Josh is understandably horrified when he learns that the President has given his consent to the consultancy being hired by the White House.
The third storyline is to lead to what made the West Wing more than clever and funny. Because of the accident a doctor visits the President for physical checks. The President is the kind of man whom likes to know the backgrounds of everyone who works for or attend him. The doctor is a serving member of the army Captain Morris Tolliver who wife has just given birth to their first child, a son. He shows the photograph to everyone he comes across including the President. The President wants the man to become his White House physician, because he likes him and he agrees mentioning that he has a teaching commitment which takes him for a week to the middle east. The episode ends as the President informs that the plane has been shot down by Syria. The President’s anger is heightened because he knows the former doctor and identifies with the impact on the man’s wife and recent mother.
He declares I am going to blow them off the face of earth with the fury God’s own thunder.
“A proportional response”, is the reality of what a President has and can do. He wants to send a message across the world that any American should be free to walk the planet without fear because of the military power and potential for retaliation. He reminds that this was once he position of the Roman Citizen. He is shocked when he learns that the various options are likely to have only temporary effect because the Syrians will have worked out the likely response and cleared the sites of people. The buildings can be replaced. The president in his anger and distress becomes bad tempered with everyone including his off screen wife.
Meanwhile Josh has the responsibility of interviewing a candidate for the position of personal assistant to the President. Someone who accompanies the politician or candidate virtually everywhere, often arranging lodging, transportation and meals, providing companionship, snacks, a cellphone, and any other necessary assistance. In effect an individual who probably sees more of the president than anyone else and is in effect a live in job. Reggie Love is aid to President Obama aged 27 a former American basketball football player. He is well known for playing basket ball with the President to be every day during the primaries, He is a political science graduate. Dule Hill, plays Charlie Young in the series, a young intelligent and ambitious black man who applied for a part time messenger job at the White House as a means of keeping his home going for his younger sister. He has some of best grades at high school and a candidate for a good university degree and career. Unfortunately his father had long gone and his mother has died, in this instance killed as a serving police officer, but the parallel with the background of President Obama will be evident.
Originally Charlie was to have appeared in the pilot as a one year appointment, a nineteen year old having a gap year before college, but was written out as drafts progressed. However when the pilot appeared with all Caucasian cast there was understandable horror within the black community and its leaders and the character was introduced in the third episode as a consequence and given great prominence than originally intended. Although 24/25 when cast in the role, Dule had a younger looked which fitted well the role. The character had applied for the role and been interviewed by a House personnel officer who had been told to be on the look out for a suitable candidate for the aide to the President. He is therefore bemused to be interview by a senior member of the White House and asked searching questions about his background and political interests,. he is taken in to met the President at the worst possible moment as the president is in a flap because he cannot find his glasses and is in the run up to taking action over the shooting of the civilian plane(Lockerbie bombing?) Charlie then shock everyone by intervening to point out that the President said he could not remember seeing his glasses since he put them don the previous evening reading a report. The staff go off to the room where this happened to find and return the glasses. The President instead of expressing gratitude says he has no time to meet new people in a rude away. Later he apologies and demonstrates that he has learnt the background, approves the appointment and will take action to tackle the kind of gun crime which lead to the death of the mother.
The nub of the episode is the dawning reality that the recommended military response is the best and only practical political response to be made. It will not escalate the position but serve as a warning that should there be a second incident then much worse would follow. Moreover the reality si that the President is committing the lives of US service men and women by the action taken. This is as troubling as the anger over the loss of civilian lives. The episode is also significant because it reveals the importance of the relationship between the President and his Chief of Staff. In a previous episode CJ asks the Chief of Staff, Leo McGarry what the President will do about the gaff of his deputy. Leo comments that he has known the President for forty years and never knows how he will react or what issues he will take up or drop. When the Chief of staff comments that the President is planning a $5000 fine for a $50 dollar crime, The President still threatens to bring down his wrath upon the Syrian population. Leo comments that if he does so then he will spend the rest of his days bringing down the man he substantially helped to get into the office
Among the quotes are “lets do it right : not much chance of that.” What’s the good of power if you are not going to haul your enemies in for questioning? : What we really need to do is to arrest people for being mean to the President! “ We are behaving the way a superpower ought to behave: Well our behaviour has produced some crappy results.”
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