what we need is a fictional President

You know what “the Right” and the “Conservative Movement” needs as a sort of tempering force?  Their own fictional president.  Throughout the Bush Administration, your Democratic person would constantly point to President Bartlet and say “That’s My President!”  With that, The West Wing provided a sort of safety valve and equalizer as the nation’s attitudes, from their perspective, swerved off course in that long stretch where Bush’s approval rating stood in the 60s and 70s — some approximate Democratic Administration as opposed to someone approaching Nader territory in politics.

I don’t know that this Conservative version of the West Wing would work.  Think of the problem of the supposed antidote to the Daily Show — Fox’s “30 Minute News Hour”.  Something worth noting about Jon Stewart — his send-up on Acorn is receiving “pleasantly surprised” plaudits from conservative bloggers, which it shouldn’t — that has all the workings that Stewart would jump on.  “Half Hour News Hour” was not equipped to step out of its boundary lines.

The West Wing ended with Alan Alda’s character elected president, Republican.  Maybe Aaron Sorkin can just pick up the show from there and not .  But probably not.  My “temperizing force” theory will fall apart as he’s declared a “RINO”, and requisite bashing of Lawrence O’Donnell.

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