Altruistic ‘West Wing’ Too Good to Be True

You’ll get no argument here about NBC’s new White House drama being one of the most watchable series of the season. What’s not to watch? It’s well-acted, smartly written and a must-see for viewers smitten by topical issues that coexist with big humanity and big sentiment.

A good series? Absolutely. “The West Wing” will never be a great one, though, until it takes that additional step and stops being a commercial for feel-good Feds.

Call this the other side of the Clinton coin, if you will. In any case, “The West Wing” ignores history by seductively inviting Americans to trust in the inherent virtue of the government’s executive branch and those who steer it. In this case, it’s a Democratic White House whose inhabitants, from Martin Sheen’s President Josiah Bartlett to the secretarial pool, spend each week converging on the same Holy Grail of goodness.

Throw the bums out? What bums? The show’s lump-in-your-throat theme music announces creator Aaron Sorkin’s intentions, for this is a White House that even most Republicans could respect, one perpetuating the false assumption that gleaming personal values are a prerequisite for a president and his senior staff to function effectively on behalf of the people.

That may not be a bad goal, given what the United States has been through in the ‘90s. What’s more, “The West Wing” affirms that well-executed fables are hardly without charm.

The series would be much more interesting, though, with a goodness gap. It would zoom higher with at least one lower life, a figure whose effectiveness as a White House player is not lessened by his character potholes. If not a malevolent hired gun and crass opportunist like Dick Morris--the unofficial Clinton political advisor who was forced to leave after his own sex scandal--then at least someone of comparable shallowness whose skill vastly exceeds his integrity.

ABC’s “NYPD Blue” comes to mind here, rising above most other series, in part, because of its courage in flaunting the personality flaws of Dennis Franz’s bigoted Det. Andy Sipowicz. Just as another elite drama, NBC’s “Law & Order,” has done to a lesser degree with some of its characters.

As tonight’s Christmas episode shows, there’s no such person on the horizon for “The West Wing”--not even a Linda Tripp buzzing the White House on her broomstick.

It begins with a homeless Korean War veteran dying of exposure on the National Mall with the business card of White House communications director Toby Ziegler (Richard Schiff) in his overcoat pocket. A deeply touched Ziegler doesn’t walk away from this coincidence. Instead, the wheels of compassion immediately turn in his brain, leading into an hour that tosses one selfless deed after another on its bonfire of Christmas warmth.

That also includes chief of staff Leo McGarry (John Spencer), a recovering alcoholic, being ready to stand down rather than subject the president to potentially devastating revelations about his past, or resort to dirty politics as a defense. When deputy chief of staff Josh Lyman (Bradley Whitford) and deputy communications director Sam Seaborn (Rob Lowe) urge sleazy “preemptive action” against the GOP congressman about to expose McGarry, they’re rebuked by the high-minded McGarry.

He reminds them: “We don’t do these things.”

And how, for the president himself hints later that he would rather suffer a political hit from his enemies than have McGarry make the ultimate sacrifice by stepping aside. Just as the president stood by Lyman after that aide made an embarrassing political gaffe in the series premiere.

In fact, Bartlett spends much of tonight’s hour glowing brighter than the White House Christmas tree, whether welcoming visiting third-graders to the Oval Office like an avuncular St. Nick or denying aide Mandy Hampton (Moira Kelly) permission to make a photo op of him dragging along his senior staff for some secret last-minute Christmas shopping at a rare-book store.

“Leave me alone,” he says when she grouses. “This is a Christmas thing I’m doing, Mandy. We don’t have to make hay out of it.”

Is this the White House or “The Twilight Zone”?

“The West Wing” isn’t the recognizable past or present. So perhaps it’s the ghost of Christmas future. Is it foreshadowing President Gore or President Bradley? President Bush or President McCain? Whatever the case, one of them will have quite a presidency to live up to now that Josiah Bartlett’s purity has been on display.

His White House is one where no conflict is too serious to endure past the final credits, as in McGarry and press secretary C.J. Gregg (Allison Janney) appearing to reconcile on a seminal issue by hour’s end. It’s where senior aides keep their egos and jealousies in check, where they like and respect each other, where they don’t compete for the president’s ear, where they ultimately do the right thing. It’s also a White House that overlooks a city where a high-toned hooker acts with integrity and where the homeless project has an aura of nobility that commands respect.

So naturally the president isn’t angry when Ziegler oversteps his authority in doing something for the dead Korean War vet en route to an emotional finale that is about as suffocatingly slick as Hollywood gets. Instead of quibbling, Bartlett gets that 500-watt gleam in his eye, the one assuring America everything is all right.

Him act callously? In this White House, it’s not what they do.

*

“The West Wing” airs Wednesdays at 9 p.m. on NBC.