I’ve only just now seen the end of this season’s West Wing.

I was disinheartened with the show for a while, and after September 11th it just seemed so petty. And then I got back into it, slowly, grudgingly, because I know that it can be good sometimes, and I really wanted some good politics. Like, politics that don’t infuriate me with their stupidity, but politics at their most important and most…touching. Government touches everything, changes things. And I was again getting very disgusted with our government, so I needed some relief.

Anyway, West Wing was getting pretty good again, and then they decided to kill Donovan, and boy was I pissed. They always have to kill someone, is that it? Have to ratchet up the drama a bit? No, by the end I realized it was useful. It wasn’t great. I liked that charater. It wasn’t fitting for him to die in that way, after we spent so much time demonstrating the superiority of Secret Service training. He didn’t see the second shooter? It rung false. But it was a good plot device.

Bartlet had to make the choice of assasinating a foreign leader who is also a terror kingpin. And the decision is clear, yet agonizing. And he has family too. And when people die, it affects other people, and it cascades. The writing was good at demonstrating this. One year later we begin a search for a replacement to Mrs. Landingham, a wonderful woman who died suddenly in a traffic accident on the eve of a big Bartlet decision. Then Donovan dies here. And, of course, in the first season we had our shooting as Roselin to end it all.

Maybe Sorkin can’t figure something else out. Dunno. Regardless, the issues raised were deep and powerful and well executed. My ideas of politics continue to change. And the George W. Bush impersonation who is Bartlet’s opponent is just so good. They don’t show him as an idiot, but certainly as a dolt (and no I don’t know where that line is).

I think the question really becomes this: when it is time to assasinate a foreign leader, to weigh a decision and execute it in accordance with your morals and with the good of your country, when you have to do something that really matters, not just politicking…

When a leader has to do that, make that choice, who would you rather have in office? And I personally would like someone well educated, even if it means I have to deal with some manner of elitism.

I’ve learned after much struggle that there is no reason to detest those who are smarter than me. Everyone has their own unique abilities, and sometimes someone is just right for president, and someone else is not. Me, for instance. Not president material, at least not yet.