Who Won the ‘West Wing’ Live Debate?
By Marc • Nov 7th, 2005 • Category: Pop Culture, the RanterWho cares?!?!?!? OK everyone, let’s repeat after me. “It’s just a TV show.” “It’s just a TV show.” “It’s just a TV show.”
NEW YORK – Who won the debate? That was up to each viewer of “The West Wing” to decide. No pundits came on afterward to spin the results.
But this fictional faceoff Sunday night had everything else, including a wishful vision of what a presidential debate might look like if its participants were willing to take off the gloves.
Notice how they said the “fictional faceoff”…
From Webster:
Main Entry: fic·tion
Pronunciation: ‘fik-sh&n
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English ficcioun, from Middle French fiction, from Latin fiction-, fictio act of fashioning, fiction, from fingere to shape, fashion, feign — more at DOUGH
1 a : something invented by the imagination or feigned; specifically : an invented story b : fictitious literature (as novels or short stories) c : a work of fiction; especially : NOVEL
2 a : an assumption of a possibility as a fact irrespective of the question of its truth b : a useful illusion or pretense
3 : the action of feigning or of creating with the imagination
Some people take some of this crap way to seriously. I blame all these horrible “reality” shows.
UPDATE: I’ve really enjoyed the discussion going on at Oliver Willis’ blog, go take a look..
Marc is a Catholic technology geek living in Tennessee. He blogs at Wild Tangents and is the host of the Catholic Vocations Podcast.
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Y’know, that’s so funny – I wrote almost the same sentiment on my blog:
Who won the debate? Who cares? The show isn’t real, the issues are out of date and so long as Hollywood is unabashedly and unapologetically in lock step with the left why should I allow them to define the terms of the debate – live or otherwise?
Well as a West Winf FANatic…even though this isn’t REAL…it was entertaining. By the way…even ZOGBY got in the act…duuuuh.
http://zogby.com/Soundbites/ReadClips.dbm?ID=12168
I watched it too — I have to admit, conceding all the show’s flaws, I do enjoy “West Wing”; despite all its biases, it is remarkably good at depicting politics; something TV and movies do laughably badly.
But this season has represented a sort of streaming fantasy on the part of Hollywood and other elite leftists: the sort of matchup of GOP and Dem candidates that they dream of. And it is rather laughable at times, and detracts substantially from WW’s realism about politics. To wit: the odds of someone like the Alan Alda character getting the nomination are so long as to be laughable. Then there’s the underlying fantasy that the nation is contentedly pro-abortion. What planet do the creators of this show telecommute from?
By the way — thanks for the plug (on another thread)!
No problem Father. It’s an honor to have you commenting on my blog.
I don’t think it is that far fetched that a candidate like Vinnick could get the nomination. John McCain is very similar and he is considered a leading candidate for 2008. McCain isn’t pro-choice like Vinnick is supposed to be, but he isn’t exactly pro-life in the way that most christian conservatives want him to be either.
To the author of this blog, if you are going to leave a trackback on my blog, please at least give me a link. Your welcome for your free advertising. I’ll leave your trackback instead of deleting it like the spam that it is because I just put my link down with this comment.
Nope, but as far as I am concerned the trackback is for when you reference someone else’s work. I saw there was a trackback on my post so I thought I would see something about it on your blog. But instead there wasn’t even a mention or a link or anything. That’s how I use trackbacks. That’s all I’m saying.
Brandon – You’ll notice I deleted my response. Not because I was wrong (which I was). I admit I was probably wrong in the argument. You’ve got mail.