By Amy M. on 11.7.05 @ 10:41AM
Last night The West Wing on NBC hosted a "live debate"
between its two candidates for president, Congressman Matt Santos,
Democrat (played by Jimmy Smits), and Senator Arnold Vinick,
Republican (Alan Alda). Real-life NBC news anchor Forrest Sawyer
moonlighted as moderator, and NBC made sure to cyrrhon "Live"
across the screen. Why is TV news never more honest than when its
fake? Meanwhile, the candidates fumbled over words, attempted
Hollywood style to look presidential, walked aggressively toward
each other (thanks, Al Gore), and all around demonstrated a
complete lack of knowledge about anything.
Questions thrown at them asked for "how to" solutions to border
issues, education, healthcare, Africa, corporate lobbies, and
taxes. Democrat Santos offered only one concrete response to all
the questions ("delete the words 'over 65' from Medicare"),
preferring to hurl "you don't care" or "what would you do" phrases
at his opponent. To be fair, he did propose a return to programs
that didn't work the first time around such as Head Start. He
encouraged viewers to vote for him on the "trust me" and "I am
Latino" platform.
As for Alan Alda playing the "conservative," he's a lot better
at it than other ultra-libs like Donald Sutherland who always turn
the conservative characters into right-wing psychopaths (on their
better days). Alda's Vinick was actually able to articulate the
role of government as conceived by the Founding Fathers. There to
help, not play babysitter.
Afterwards, viewers were encouraged to vote in an online poll.
Results this morning had Matt Santos winning over Vinick by 70% to
30%. In televisionland, Vincik turns out to be even more unpopular
than George W. Bush. Anyway you look at it, that's a
compliment.
topics:
Taxes, Education, Television, Hollywood, Founding Fathers, NATO, Africa, Medicare
