430 Comments

Don't be dissin' Stockard Channing. She's one of my first crushes!!

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If you are a woman, or any shade of skin darker than Casper the Ghost, or not religious or not RW religious, or are or even know people who are LGBTQ+, or are or know people who do not fit the binary gender stereotype, or are or know people who live from paycheck to pay check, or are retired or know any retirees, or are or know people who avoid seeking medical care for fear of heavy heavy debt, have or know anymore still with heavy student loan debt ... and do not choose to vote whoever the Democrats nominate, you deserve to be trod on by jackbooted asshole republicans.

The rest of us do not!

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Comment on Black men for Kamala. They better listen. Sounds like Mama don't play

One of my girlfriends (who is older & happens to be black) told me after yesterday, "black men better show up for Kamala or their mamas are going to bitch slap them back into the womb & will start over"

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Ta, Marcie. I've never seen The West Wing. Aaron Sorkin can step on a rusty rake.

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LOL. I didn’t have “TV writer encourages DEMs to nominate a stereotypical GOP politician for President” on my 2024 BINGO card.

And there is some pretty weird shit on that card.

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> Does Aaron Sorkin even know any women

Having hung out on Television Without Pity back when he was showing his ass there, I have it on good authority that the only realistic female character he ever created was originally written to be male.

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Would that character be CJ Cregg? Because I’m pretty sure the reason she was so awesome is because she was played by the always amazing Allison Janney.

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That sounds right; it was a long time ago and I wasn’t watching the show.

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Sorkin must still live in a fantasy world from 20+ years ago. This idea of nominating people from other parties is a TV plot, not real life

Like in "Commander in Chief" with Geena Davis. She's a supposed 'independent' who is VP alongside a proto-fascist Repub, who dies. Then everybody tried to get her to resign so that Donald Sutherland's Speaker who is also a Republican can take over, the argument being that's what the Prez intended. She tells them GTFO, then later gets a Mike Flynn type retired General to be her VP.

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It's that Team of Rivals bullshit that only ever gets suggested for Democrats.

Trump loses the electoral vote and he has a "mandate." Democrats are supposed to nominate Republicans though. It's incredibly stupid and one-sided

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I love the West Wing as much as the next white liberal, but I fully recognize that it was FICTION.

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We loved the West Wing but knew it was so off base with reality that we couldn't stand to watch it during the reality of W's years. The hubby got back into watching it during any democrats term in office but I still can't do that. Hillary's loss has scarred me for life.

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"...his is a ‘West Wing’ fantasy that would never, ever happen,” Sorkin wrote. “But as [West Wing actor] Bradley Whitford used to say, ‘Isn’t the biggest fantasy on television a mafia boss in therapy?’..."

WTF does "The Sopranos" have to do with anything? Were either Sorkin or Whitford at all involved in that show?

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I think it's that it was on around the same time, and Sorkin is sore that people don't rate The West Wing as highly as they do The Sopranos.

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I don't think either of them were as brilliant as people want to believe. Apologies to SER...

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Hahaha I’m Aaron Sorkin and I’ve never had to worry about not being able to get an abortion, hahaha walk with me

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I never watched a single episode of The West Wing. I did watch most of the single season of his dumpster fire follow-up, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. It was *surreally* terrible.

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It would be a sacrifice, a sacrifice of the women, LGBTQ, POC Americans. But he's not one so he wouldn't care.

My son was in second grade in 2012 and of course kids were talking about what they overheard their parents saying about the upcoming election. I still remember one night when he shared he was scared that Romney would win because kids were saying that if that happened all kids would have to be home schooled and wouldn't have any shoes. I assured him that 1. Obama was going to win and 2. He would continue in public school wearing shoes no matter what.

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That's Mother of the Year parenting. Wearing no shoes to school was good enough for our grannies and grandpappies, whether they had to walk uphill both ways or not.

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I can honestly claim that the only thing I remember about The West Wing is that it existed, for which I'm glad. Every bit of Sorkin's writing I've ever been exposed to made me want to claw my own eyes out. This dumbass take seems very on-brand for him.

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Good actors can elevate bad writing.

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Agreed, but it frankly doesn't seem worth the effort.

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I very much like it - like a happy fantasy world - but I have no difficulty recognizing that it's fiction... nor am I immune from rolling my eyes when Sorkin throws some Sorkin bullshit into the plot.

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Yeah, I never watched it, I just followed the snark on TWoP and watched as people discovered the cracks.

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I heard about this stinker of a pitch letter yesterday, but the world of real politics had an earthquake before I could even look at it. It's dumber than I had even imagined. And Sorkin is not nearly as clever as he thinks he is. Yeah, I know The West Wing has devoted fans -- fantasy usually does -- but I gotta remind people that that show still leaves 90% of the public cold. I myself watched a couple of episodes but it never engaged me. Because, fantasy, and pretty lame fantasy at that. If I'm gonna watch pasty-faced, never-existed figures wandering about the White House like they own it, I wanna see them eating brains or something.

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The WaPo posted letters to the editor saying almost the same thing. Except it was for Liz Cheney or Adam Kinzinger being the Democrats' VP choice.

The comments on the letters were scathing.

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For those of you who may have been mistaken about the NYT being a "liberal" newspaper back during the 1990s/2000z. From the link n the article:

"Sorkin's commercial instincts will be tested in the months ahead as ''West Wing'' adapts to the changing political environment. For the first two years of its life, 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐰'𝐬 𝐝𝐞𝐩𝐢𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐨𝐟 𝐚𝐧 𝐞𝐱𝐞𝐜𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐡 𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐥𝐲 𝐩𝐨𝐩𝐮𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐛𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐛𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐚 𝐛𝐚𝐥𝐦 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐰𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐲 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐥𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐟𝐫𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐬𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐚𝐥𝐬 [created by Republicans] 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐂𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐨𝐧 𝐞𝐫𝐚. The political operatives that Sorkin summoned from his imagination were so smart and scrupulous and impassioned that they were irresistible in a moment when real-life politics seemed trivial.

𝐓𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐦𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭, 𝐡𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫, 𝐡𝐚𝐬 𝐩𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐝, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐢𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐚𝐭 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐜𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐫 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐬𝐲 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐛𝐞 𝐚𝐬 𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐛𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐚𝐥 𝐖𝐡𝐢𝐭𝐞 𝐇𝐨𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐜𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐢𝐦𝐚𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐨𝐧 ''𝐖𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐖𝐢𝐧𝐠.'' 𝐖𝐚𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐭𝐨𝐧 𝐢𝐬 𝐚 𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬, 𝐦𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐟𝐮𝐥 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐞 𝐚𝐠𝐚𝐢𝐧. The week before I visited Sorkin in Los Angeles, he told me over the phone that he is not certain the show will have to permanently change. He has ''a sense that our perception will return to normal'' and that the real government will ''go back to being annoying.''"

Peter de Jonge thought Clinton was trivial, and GWB was a very serious man. Good Lord!

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