The marine band struck up a familiar theme. The door of the Oval Office swung open. Out strode the president and first lady to address an expectant crowd – that is, the real first lady, Jill Biden, and the president that fans of the TV show The West Wing used to secretly crave: Jed Bartlet, alias actor Martin Sheen.
After a decade in which US politics has often felt like the work of a hyper-imaginative screenwriter, with ever more unlikely plot twists including the election of a reality TV star, it felt strangely natural to see Sheen stepping into the shoes of Joe Biden as his show’s theme music filled the Rose Garden.
“We just came from the Oval,” said Jill Biden. “But even though Joe is away hosting leaders of Australia and India and Japan in Delaware, he wanted to make sure that President Bartlet and his staff had a chance to see the Oval Office again.”
Sheen and fellow cast members had come to the White House to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the first episode of The West Wing, the seven-season drama about an idealist liberal president and his fast-talking staff.
On Friday, in warm sunshine, there were references to “big blocks of cheese” – a tradition on the show of requiring presidential staffers to meet with eccentric or offbeat constituents – and the walk-and-talk dialogues in which characters moved through the halls at high speed. Waiters passed out bourbon-and-ginger ale cocktails called the Jackal, a reference to press secretary CJ Cregg’s dance and lip-sync routine in one episode.
Sheen – who has said his character was a conglomeration of Democrats John F Kennedy, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton – rolled back the years. In classic Bartlet mode, he exhorted the crowd to find something worth fighting for, “something deeply personal and uncompromising, something that can unite the will of the spirit with the work of the flesh”.
Then Aaron Sorkin, the show’s creator, declared: “Our cast will live on as one of the best in the history of television,” and recognised those in attendance. Among them were Richard Schiff, who played communications director Toby Ziegler; Janel Moloney, who played assistant Donna Moss; and Dulé Hill, who played the president’s body man, Charlie Young.
Sorkin also noted the absence of a few high-profile actors – Allison Janney, Bradley Whitford and Rob Lowe, better known to fans as Cregg, Josh Lyman and Sam Seaborn – who he said were on set elsewhere. “The rest of us are apparently unemployed,” he joked.
After the crowd laughed, a voice chimed in from Sorkin’s right. “Not yet!” Jill Biden said. It was a nod to the fact that her husband still has four months left in office – and a quick retort worthy of Bartlet’s exchanges with wife Abbey Bartlet, played by Stockard Channing.
The West Wing remains a favourite of many who now work in Washington. Among those spotted in the Rose Garden were the House foreign affairs chair, Michael McCaul, a Republican from Texas, and Joe Walsh, once a Tea Party-aligned Illinois representative who is now a fierce critic of former president Donald Trump.
Sorkin reflected: “We had no political agenda. We were trying to do a good show every week. But the greatest delivery system ever invented for an idea is a story and, once in a while, we’ll hear from someone who was inspired to go into public service because of our show. And that’s something that 25 years ago this week, none of us could have foreseen or even dared to hope for.”
Born in the last year of the 20th century, the show illustrates that there is nothing so remote as the recent past. Its run coincided with the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. It was off the air by the time Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden were elected and long gone when the Covid-19 pandemic and January 6 insurrection unfolded.
Sorkin continued: “The show was idealistic, aspirational and romantic. Over the years, I’ve noticed that during times of peak political tension, pundits will warn us not to expect ‘a West Wing moment’.
“They mean not to expect a selfless act of statesmanship. Not to expect anyone to put country first. Don’t expect anyone to swing for the fences or reach for the stars. But the fact is, West Wing moments do happen and Dr Biden, we saw proof of that on the morning of July 21.”
That was the day Joe Biden announced he would not seek re-election after a disastrous debate performance and growing concerns over the 81-year-old’s mental and physical condition. For months, however, Biden had been in denial. If anyone wants to look for an on-screen parallel, it might be Bartlet hiding a multiple sclerosis diagnosis while running for president.
The final season of The West Wing saw Bartlet passing on the torch to fellow Democrat Matthew Santos, played by Jimmy Smits. He becomes America’s first Latino president after defeating Senator Arnold Vinick of California, portrayed by Alan Alda as the kind of old school Republican who is now an endangered species in the Trump era.
Nothing, perhaps, dates The West Wing more than that.
