"Watch This."

      Today, Bravo aired the "Two Cathedrals" episode of The West Wing, the finale to the show's second season. For those of you that don't follow the show, this was a magnificent episode, as Martin Sheen's President Bartlet had to deal with a series of personal issues, including his deception of the American people about his MS diagnosis, a hostage situation in (of all places) Haiti, and the kick in the stomach, the sudden death of his longtime secretary Mrs. Landingham. (A great character: losing her really was a shame.) The episode had shades of King Lear (including a mysterious storm ravaging the Atlantic seaboard), but the tough-stuff moment comes in a powerful soliloquy that gives Bartlet his Job-moment. Aggressively tramping through the cathedral after his secretary's funeral, Bartlet lights a cigarette and launches on God:

You're a son of a bitch, you know that? She bought her first new car and you hit her with a drunk driver. What, was that supposed to be funny? "You can't conceive, nor can I, the appalling strangeness of the mercy of God," says Graham Greene. I don't know whose ass he was kissin' there, 'cause I think you're just vindictive. What was Josh Lyman, a warning shot? That was my son. What did I ever do to yours but praise his glory and praise his name? There's a tropical storm that's gaining speed and power. They say we haven't had a storm this bad since you took out that Tender ship of mine in the North Atlantic last year. Sixty-eight crew. You know what a Tender ship is? Fixes the other ships. It doesn't even carry guns, it just goes around, fixes the other ships and delivers the mail. That's all it can do.

Yes, I lied. It was a sin. I've committed many sins. Have I dispelased you, you feckless thug? 3.8 million new jobs, that wasn't good? Bailed out Mexico, increased foreign trade, thirty million new acres of land for conservation, put Mendoza on the bench, we're not fighting a war, I've raised three children... that's not enough to buy me out of the dog house?

Am I really to believe that these are the acts of a loving God? A just God? A wise God? To hell with your punishments. I was your servant here on Earth. And I spread your word and I did your work. To hell with your punishments. To hell with you. [He throws his cigarette on the floor and steps on it.]

(The Greene quote, by the way, is from his novel Brighton Rock, and is delivered by an old priest whose wisdom on matters is a tad tenuous; Bartlet's missing a few minor words in his citation.) But watching Sheen deliver those lines, I had shivers. This was brilliant television writing, audacious, tough, literate, but also stern; Bartlet isn't exculpated, and nor is God. It's as if God and Bartlet have become political enemies, each doing what each needs to do, but there's a bilious antagonism between them, though God, of course, says nothing in response. I was also admiring the intelligence of this man, and thinking to myself that if George W displayed even a fraction of this man's intelligence, I'd renounce my opinion of him as a dangerous buffoon and give him more than an ounce of the benefit of the proverbial doubt. Of course, Bartlet is fictional, and I'm sure Aaron Sorkin worked his butt off on that speech. But one can dream, can't one? As distraught as Bush may have been, say, on Septemeber 11th, there's no way in hell he thought of calling God "a feckless thug." (No, that's not an attack on Dubya's beliefs; it's an attack on his banality and general stupidity.) Those are the two anchors of The West Wing, though: sharp writing by Aaron Sorkin, and Sheen's very commanding presence as Bartlet. Sadly, since Sorkin left the show last year, the writing has gone to pot, and the stories have become increasingly desperate and contrived, leaving Sheen's Bartlet less of a Commander-In-Chief-cum-titan than the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man. Watching that episode today (which, of course, I'd seen several times before, but which seems only to get better with repeated viewings), I knew I was experiencing television pretty much at its dramatic best.

      I mentioned that the episode doesn't play the sappy card, and the President isn't exculpated for the errors of his past. Instead, a vision of Mrs. Landingham, not a ghost but an imaginary presence, gives Bartlet the swift kick in the ass, saying "God doesn't make cars crash and you know it. Stop using me as an excuse." Ah, Mrs. Landingham, Bartlet's only real foil. Their exchange is worth quoting here, as the President asks for facts, asks how he can get past this:

Bartlet: Give me numbers.
Mrs. Landingham: I don't know numbers. You give them to me.
Bartlet: How about a child born in this minute has a one in five chance of being born into poverty.
Mrs. Landingham: How many Americans don't have health insurance?
Bartlet: Forty-four million.
Mrs. Landingham: What's the number one cause of death for black men under thirty-five?
Bartlet: Homicide.
Mrs. Landingham: How many Americans are behind bars?
Bartlet: Three million.
Mrs. Landingham: How many Americans are drug addicts?
Bartlet: Five million.
Mrs. Landingham: And one in five kids in poverty?
Bartlet: That's thirteen million American children. Three and a half million kids go to schools that are literally falling apart. We need a hundred and twenty-seven billion in school construction and we need it today.
Mrs. Landingham: To say nothing of fifty-three people trapped in an embassy.
Bartlet: Yes.
Mrs. Landingham: You know, if you don't want to run again, I respect that. But if you don't run because you think it's gonna be too hard or you think you're gonna lose, well, God, Jed, I don't even want to know you.

The economy of language (and the language of economy, for that matter) is effective, and the effect is to turn Bartlet around, to get him back to the foundations of facts and lift himself up from there. Most of the rest of the episode, a good several minutes, is done almost entirely without dialogue, as Dire Straits' "Brothers In Arms" plays moodily in the background, all building up to the moment that Jed decides whether or not to answer the question of whether or not he's going to run for a second term. Bartlet doesn't say anything, he doesn't explain, doesn't indicate, but all of us in the audience know what's coming, and it's wonderfully evocative because it's done with out the desperation of language. Bartlet becomes a force of nature, his body language the only thing needed to convey the change. "Watch this," says the Chief of Staff, gazing with muted glee at Bartlet taking command of the podium. And, damn it, I'm watching it, probably with as many tingles as the President's staff would have had. And, damn it, I'm watching this and thinking, TV doesn't get any better than this, even if, more of than not, TV is little for than a feckless thug. We need more forces of nature, more forces of intellect, more people willing to rattle our assumptions. Now if only Dubya had a Mrs. Landingham.