Right on the head! Good piece, Norm!

I can't help but feel sad that American politics has come to a point where we rely on actors on television dramas for ersatz political discourse. This alternate political universe on television makes me uncomfortable -- fake lady president, fake competent president, fake policy positions that clearly surpass those actually taken by our actual government. Would it be too much to elect real politicans to real offices to do these things, instead of covering the vacuity of our present government with network fantasy?

Great comment, GMCG. It's right on. Just about any American can see any number of things that could be lot better in American politics. On TV and in the movies we could figure out health care, reform the system of representation and presidential elections, have public financing of elections, and make it easier to amend the constitution so that we don't have to revert to our screwed up judicial politics to fix major problems.

Many traditional conservatives seem to love the fact that we can't really put into practice things that 60% of us want. But over time it eats away at the legitimacy of our system, and we begin to seek satisfaction in fantasy politics.

Of course in many political TV shows and movies problems are made out to be easier than they really are, and we always get treated to a hero we can live without qualification, even when after we see them in private moments. So sometimes political fantasies are motivated by an impatient desire to flee from complexity and imperfection.

Yes, we need actors or we need to import people from abroad to conduct provocative public debate. If you haven't see the Galloway vs. Hitchens debate on the Iraqi war I highly recommend it.

Interesting comment, Dende. It is astonishing to me how thoroughly people have bought into the idea that shared social goods are not just undesirable (In certain circumstances, and in certain degrees, it is perfectly legitimate to argue that they are.), but that the accomplishment of such goods is impossible. People actually seem to believe that single payer healthcare, for example, cannot (as opposed to should not) be done; this in the face if its existence in every country similarly situated to the US. I don't get it, and I share your dismay on that count.

As for you Tex, I agree that debate from somewhere is better than debate from nowhere, but it's damned sad that Jimmy Smits is putting on a better defense of domestic social programs than the whole of the Democratic party. I have seen Galloway (and frankly think that he's an opportunist who outsmarted our opportunists), and he made any number of points that dearly needed to be made. The painful part, though, is that we had to fly somebody (and a quite imperfect somebody) over here to dial the clue phone on this war. What is wrong with us that we do not generate domestic critical thought on par with that offered by foreigners and television producers?

Absolutely absurd. I made the mistake of watching this garbage last night. It was a joke. Alan Alda's lines were written by liberals as a caricature of the evils of conservatism whereas Jimmy Smits had lines that preached the glories of liberalism. Look, I consider myself to be very liberal-minded, and I found this 'debate' to be the most self-congratulatory/masturbatory display. I wondered if anyone actually thought highly of it. I'm disappointed that some of you did not see through it.

Absolutely absurd. I made the mistake of watching this garbage last night. It was a joke. Alan Alda's lines were written by liberals as a caricature of the evils of conservatism whereas Jimmy Smits had lines that preached the glories of liberalism. Look, I consider myself to be very liberal-minded, and I found this 'debate' to be the most self-congratulatory/masturbatory display. I wondered if anyone actually thought highly of it. I'm disappointed that some of you did not see through this disgusting display.

Anon, just about everyone saw through the "disgusting display" -- it was, after all, a display made on a television fiction-drama. The disgusting display that went too-long unnoticed was not the one on NBC, it was the one that began with a proudly anti-intellectual cowboy candidate running against the very concept of government progress. We paid for Jimmy Smits by watching detergent commercials; we paid for George W. Bush with thousands of lives, some of them our neighbors.

I hope that our goal is not to fight idiocy with idiocy. Let us set our goals a little higher than mere competition with the renegade cowboy.

We paid for Smits not with detergent commercials but with our integrity. There is an honest debate that is possible in this country. One that might occur beyond partisan bullshit. This 'debate' played entirely to the partisan environment that characterizes modern American politics. In this sense, it reinforced the environment. For this very fact, it is unforgivable.

I agree with you, mostly. But we are unsettled by different things. In your view, partisan platitudes in fantasyland are a bad thing. I don't disagree ... well, only to the extent that television dramas are taken seriously enough as a locus of political debate that partisanship is something we might even worry about, or be disappointed by.

What worries me more than partisanship on television dramas is that television dramas have become an accepted (indeed, preferred) forum for political conversations that are not happening in real world politics. We got a lot more out of Smits/Alda than we got out of Gore/Bush or Kerry/Bush. We got a lot more out of George Galloway than we got out of the American opposition party.

Dende's post is a good answer for why we have turned to TV dramas for political/intellectual nourishment. My point, for lack of a better way to put it, is: Holy shit, we've turned to TV dramas for the politics that we've given up having in real life. Crazy, that's all.

Then we are in agreement. I'd be interested in seeing how many people tuned into this absurd garbage of a debate compared to those who viewed the three Kerry/Bush debates -- all of which were won handily by Kerry. (For all of his other weaknesses, Kerry was one hell of a debater).

Does anyone have the data regarding viewership?

That's an interesting question. How wide is/was the fantasy-reality gap? It's hard to say that viewership would be a reliable indicator of interest, since real and fake debates were differenlty hyped and surely appealed to different viewers. I've no idea where one would find that data, though.

Remember "Anybody want to buy some wood?" Those were the days! And America elected him anyway. Wow! Just wow. Maybe I'll change my mind about this televogovernment business, take up drinking, and fill my evenings with "West Wing" and "Commander in Chief" episodes.

The ratings sweeps month stunt pulled in an estimated 9.6 million viewers, up from the 8.2 million "The West Wing" had been averaging this season, according to preliminary Nielsen Media Research figures. The NBC drama has lost about a third of its viewers this season with the move to Sunday nights.

Link

But what were the ratings for the actual Presidential debates?

Link

51 Million viewed the 3rd debate.

Hey anon you lazy bastard, it's called google. :)

It's not entirely laziness. I'm busy drinking cheap wine at the moment...but I thank you for the information.

Must be right-winger. Any good liberal can drink cheap wine and google at the same time.

I like the anonymous guy. And thanks, Norm, for doing the heavy googling. So, fantasy debate drew about about 19% of real debate got! I don't know how much that really says. BTW, it looks like about 119M voted in 2004. If you're a huge nerd, check out the mapping here: http://www.princeton.edu/~rvdb/JAVA/election2004/

Well, I'm joining the cheap wine crowd. Goodnight.

Here in Oz our fantasy debates are broadcast from Canberra fairly regularly, but I digress.

I was unable to view this "debate" but what I do know is that in Lincoln's day the Republicans were the "Liberals" - the parties flip flopped sometime after the bottle of cheap wine was opened. :)

While everyone wants to castigate the "other" guys - I would love to see America's citizens have the guts to clean house and press their elected representatives by mail, email, fax and public challenge to rid the country of the traitors who led our country to war by deceit and subterfuge.

If any of you who read this are in any way proud of the debacle initially called Operation Iraqi Liberation (O.I.L.); now, Operation Iraqi Freedom (O.I.F. doesn't spell anything) then please enlist and run your sweet arses over there and discover what war is really like. You obviously think that sitting in front of your TV and computer and pontificating makes you a war hero. (Two tours in Viet Nam - so don't even go there)

As a conscious and aware American - no matter your political leanings you must accept the fact that the present Administration has serious issues and needs to be cuddled and asked to step down. Now.

My 10 cents worth, since there are no pennies in Australia or dimes.

i hate the label liberal and conservative...

It's taken a generation for this counter-argument to be made: from the Bush-Dukakis debates to now - and only in a drama. It is time for the label to be a badge of honor once more, as it was in the sixties. The irony is that so many of the liberties won then are under attack from the same generation that fought for them: sixty now is twenty in 1965.

What a shame. What a shame. Let's claim that label as a badge, and make of their foul badges labels again.

"...the one that began with a proudly anti-intellectual cowboy candidate..."

Again, the negative about 'cowboys'. Where is this coming from?

Nobody has a problem with cowboys as such. (I sure don't.) The reason that "cowboy" is pejorative in this specific case is because the Bush exploitation of the cowboy image is so surreal in its transparency, and it was used by him to belittle intellectualism, government service, and social responsibility. I don't think for a second that Bush's manufactured cowboy image is representative of real westerners, cowboys, or whatever ... but a lot of people apparently do. Those would be the people who elected him. They don't live in my neck of the woods, but they must live somewhere, and we were all awfully credulous in buying the idea that a guy who detests government would be good at running one.

"It was a joke. Alan Alda's lines were written by liberals as a caricature of the evils of conservatism whereas Jimmy Smits had lines that preached the glories of liberalism."

I didn't get to see the whole debates, but in these clips Alda's lines seem pretty good. I mean he doesn't get to defend his proposals as well as Santos does, but I'm assuming that's because Norm put the liberal highlights in the clip.

You think Vinck's lines were a characature? Compare them to your actual presidential candidate. If Bush II had appeared on a West Wing-type show in 1995, both liberals and conservatives would have laughed him off the air as the most digusting liberal charicature of a stupid Republican ever imagined.

TV Guide: "I guess Hollywood's view of a typcial GOP candidate is an unaccomplished fundamentalist moron who can't string a complete sentence together"

The West Wing is written by liberals. But they've been enormously generous to the Republican party with Vinck. He's more appealing than anyone the GOP is going to put up there in 2008, and he's also a solid conservative on most issues. Such a guy might not be able to win a GOP nomination, but he's have a great chance with the American people.

A few thoughts:

1. There's nothing shameful about using fiction to make to make a real political point. Harriet Beecher Stowe made her anti-slavery points in "Uncle Tom's Cabin", which spread the abolitionist cause and helped spur the Civil War. Fiction often provides the intensity of emotion and clarity of vision that ultimately translates into political will. To say that politics should come before inspiration is putting the cart before the horse.

There were lots of Americans watching the Santos-Vinick debate who have never seen the case for universal health care laid out in such stark, compelling terms. This may be a seed that bears fruit years later.

1. Being disappointed or even angry that "we got more from" these fantasy debates than our real debates is like feeling cheated that police officers can't fly like Superman.

For what it's worth, the last series of debates we had were really quite excellent, especially the third Bush-Kerry debate, the one with the questions from the audience. We got as good a display of the minds of both candidates as we saw during this West Wing episode. Bush got elected anyway. :)

1. This particular West Wing debate wasn't a one-sided strawman spectacle... my wife and I (both liberals) agreed that Vinick's character won the debate and would probably be elected, if this were real. Vinick had some great, genuinely insightful monologues himself, including one that addressed African poverty in a very powerful way. Conservatives just have such an enmity towards the West Wing that they can't bring themselves to acknowledge that liberal Lawrence O'Donnell, the writer, portrayed them well. (Even Zogby did a poll that showed Santos actually lost ground among West Wing's core audience, with Vinick's imaginary poll numbers going up 9% after the debate.)

I distinctly remember Bush I saying "He's got to explain some of these liberal positions of his" in a debate with Dukakis. Not much more nuanced than Alda's lines. I desperately wanted Dukakis to give a speech like Smits gave here, saying he was proud to be liberal, and if he had it may well have changed the course of American politics. Unfortunately, Dukakis said something wimpy and stupid instead.

It's sad the Green Party wears the "Liberal" label like a badge of honor and they get attacked by Democrats. The two heads of the same political party will keep running for the center as long as they maintain control over electoral politics. We should get instant runoff voting implemented immediately. http://www.fairvote.org

(1) Lawrence O'Donnell is no Harriet Beecher Stowe. But I agree that worse things could happen than exposing people to serious debate in dramatized form.

(2) Clever Superman analogy, but I think my disappointment is a bit more reasonable: I'm not disappointed that our process didn't produce a superpower administration; I'm disappointed that our process didn't produce a competent administration. Is that expecting too much?

...sweet clip. So anyone have a link to d/l this file? This is worthy enough for my library :)

I recall when Kerry was running, Bush's surrogates were attacking him with the line that "He's a liberal", and using his liberal voting record in the Senate as a club to beat Kerry with (and they had to distort the record to do that). I can't recall whether Bush himself used the words "Massachusetts Liberal", but I believe he did, and he certainly used that class of attack.

So, in that respect at least, Alda's character is dead on.

Lawrence O'Donnell is no Harriet Beecher Stowe?

She's so great? It's a good story and she means well but it's not exactly timeless prose or watchwork-plotting we're talking about. Stowe wrote melodrama - a soap opera.

I think O'Donnell is worthy of comparison.