The Reviews Are In

Professor Reynolds links to Cafe Hayek's review of the "West Wing" live debate, which praises Alan Alda -- or at least the ideas expressed by his character, Arnie Vinick, and the writers who penned his lines:

But what I found interesting was how little they chose to caricature the Republican's views, at least in the part I saw. He wasn't a "compassionate conservative." And he wasn't a heartless monster. He was about as Jeffersonian as you could imagine. Whoever gets the Republican nomination the next time around ought to hire whoever wrote Alda's lines. It would be even nicer to have a candidate to choose from who actually believed those lines as well.

Of course, as I noted in the BaT review, Vinick had been positioned as a "moderate" throughout the season. However, his debate points mirrored Reagan. Who knew Hollywood viewed Reagan as a moderate?

Meanwhile, over on his blog, Cato Institute analyst Radley "The Agitator" Balko also liked what he heard from Vinick.

It's a sad state of affairs when the most eloquent defense of free markets, private initiative, and limited government uttered by a politician in two decades has come from a fictitious presidential candidate played by an actor with leftist politics.

Still, the West Wing staff ought to be credited. Not only did they not creat a caricature of a Republican, they created a better Republican than any currently serving in Washington.

And the Queen of All Evil has a nice little back-and-forth discussion on the debate:

Weird trivia: younger viewers switched allegiance to Vinnick after viewing the show; older viewers stayed with Santos.

Lastly, judging by the fan-boards (I told you I loved the show) the die-hards weren't crazy about this episode. The ones who liked it were, like, "enh" and the ones who disliked it, detested it.

A poll on NBC overwhelmingly says Jimmy Smits' character, Matt Santos, won the debate. I can't say that surprises me, because most conservatives long ago tuned the show out because of Jed Bartlet's increasingly sanctimonious diatribes. (Hat tip: Matt over at Chip-Chat, who utters anti-Ellen remarks in yesterday's comments here.)

The State newspaper in Columbia, S.C., agrees with BaT that post-debate spin would have been a nice touch:

The one main missing element was the post-show weigh-in of political pundits, providing highlights and who they thought won or lost.

A blog called, very appropriately, WestWingNews has a complete roundup. If I haven't completely bored you with the show no one apparently watches ...