The West Wing Officially Jumps the Shark

There are those who found last night's "live debate" to be compelling TV, including wistful thinking that only if real political debates were like this. Whatever. Riddle me this: As I understand it, this season is supposed to play out what executive producer Larry O'Donnell thinks is a dream presidential match-up of a liberal former-marine Democrat and a moderate Republican. So why this silly exchange?

"Republicans have tried to turn 'liberal' into a bad word," said Santos.
"Well, liberals ended slavery in this country."

"A Republican president ended slavery," Vinick retorted.

"Yes, a LIBERAL Republican, senator. What happened to THEM?"

The free fall of the writing quality continues with this heavy-handed scripting, despite the appearance of Tommy Schlamme's name in the credits. Nevertheless, I will continue to watch this gawker slow-down through to the end of the season. After that I'll stick to the DVDs from the seasons when creator Aaron Sorkin was still involved.

Aside:

This explains the shark reference.