{"id":4620,"date":"2008-09-28T08:34:20","date_gmt":"2008-09-28T15:34:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2008\/09\/28\/obama-meet-bartlett\/"},"modified":"2019-12-23T13:13:16","modified_gmt":"2019-12-23T21:13:16","slug":"obama-meet-bartlett","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2008\/09\/28\/obama-meet-bartlett\/","title":{"rendered":"Obama, Meet Bartlet"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='__iawmlf-post-loop-links' style='display:none;' data-iawmlf-post-links='[{&quot;id&quot;:5080,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/www.nytimes.com\\\/2008\\\/09\\\/21\\\/opinion\\\/21dowd-sorkin.html?_r=1&amp;hp&amp;oref=slogin&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:5081,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/www.metafilter.com\\\/75035\\\/There-is-only-hope&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.metafilter.com\\\/75035\\\/There-is-only-hope&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;}]'><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2008\/09\/21\/opinion\/21dowd-sorkin.html?_r=1&amp;hp&amp;oref=slogin\" title=\"New York Times: Aaron Sorkin Conjures a Meeting of Obama and Bartlet\">There&#8217;s a New York Times column<\/a> where West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin writes a bit of political &#8216;fanfic&#8217;: what advice could Barack Obama get from former president Jed Bartlet?<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n  <strong>OBAMA<\/strong> They pivoted off the argument that I was inexperienced to the criticism that I\u2019m \u2014 wait for it \u2014 the Messiah, who, by the way, was a community organizer. When I speak I try to lead with inspiration and aptitude. How is that a liability?<\/p>\n<p>  <strong>BARTLET<\/strong> Because the idea of American exceptionalism doesn\u2019t extend to Americans being exceptional. If you excelled academically and are able to casually use 690 SAT words then you might as well have the press shoot video of you giving the finger to the Statue of Liberty while the Dixie Chicks sing the University of the Taliban fight song. The people who want English to be the official language of the United States are uncomfortable with their leaders being fluent in it.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I <em>love that line<\/em>: &#8220;The people who want English to be the official language of the United States are uncomfortable with their leaders being fluent in it.&#8221; So sadly true.<\/p>\n<p>Then, leading into a rant more than worthy of some of the best West Wing episodes&#8230;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n  <strong>OBAMA<\/strong> The problem is we can\u2019t appear angry. Bush called us the angry left. Did you see anyone in Denver who was angry?<\/p>\n<p>  <strong>BARTLET<\/strong> Well &#8230; let me think. &#8230;We went to war against the wrong country, Osama bin Laden just celebrated his seventh anniversary of not being caught either dead or alive, my family\u2019s less safe than it was eight years ago, we\u2019ve lost trillions of dollars, millions of jobs, thousands of lives and we lost an entire city due to bad weather. So, you know &#8230; <em>I\u2019m<\/em> a little angry.<\/p>\n<p>  <strong>OBAMA<\/strong> What would you do?<\/p>\n<p>  <strong>BARTLET<\/strong> <em>GET ANGRIER!<\/em> Call them liars, because that\u2019s what they are. Sarah Palin didn\u2019t say \u201cthanks but no thanks\u201d to the Bridge to Nowhere. She just said \u201cThanks.\u201d You were raised by a single mother on food stamps \u2014 where does a guy with eight houses who was legacied into Annapolis get off calling you an elitist? And by the way, if you do nothing else, take that word back. Elite is a good word, it means well above average. I\u2019d ask them what their problem is with excellence. While you\u2019re at it, I want the word \u201cpatriot\u201d back. McCain can say that the transcendent issue of our time is the spread of Islamic fanaticism or he can choose a running mate who doesn\u2019t know the Bush doctrine from the Monroe Doctrine, but he can\u2019t do both at the same time and call it patriotic. They have to lie \u2014 the truth isn\u2019t their friend right now. Get angry. Mock them mercilessly; they\u2019ve earned it. McCain decried agents of intolerance, then chose a running mate who had to ask if she was allowed to ban books from a public library. It\u2019s not bad enough she thinks the planet Earth was created in six days 6,000 years ago complete with a man, a woman and a talking snake, she wants schools to teach the rest of our kids to deny geology, anthropology, archaeology and common sense too? It\u2019s not bad enough she\u2019s forcing her own daughter into a loveless marriage to a teenage hood, she wants the rest of us to guide our daughters in that direction too? It\u2019s not enough that a woman shouldn\u2019t have the right to choose, it should be the law of the land that she has to carry and deliver her rapist\u2019s baby too? I don\u2019t know whether or not Governor Palin has the tenacity of a pit bull, but I know for sure she\u2019s got the qualifications of one. And you\u2019re worried about seeming angry? You could eat their lunch, make them cry and tell their mamas about it and God himself would call it restrained. There are times when you are simply <em>required<\/em> to be impolite. There are times when condescension is <em>called<\/em> for!\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Oh, but how I miss Jed Bartlet. What I wouldn&#8217;t give to see Martin Sheen step back into character and let that little rant fly.<\/p>\n<p>(via <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.metafilter.com\/75035\/There-is-only-hope\" title=\"MetaFilter: There is only hope\">MeFi<\/a><\/em>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The people who want English to be the official language of the United States are uncomfortable with their leaders being fluent in it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2042,2037],"tags":[468,379,470,14,16,467,8],"class_list":["post-4620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-tv-and-films","tag-aaron-sorkin","tag-barack-obama","tag-john-mccain","tag-politics","tag-quotes","tag-sarah-palin","tag-television"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4620"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4620\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}