Thursday, December 07, 2000

Words matter

Hollywood makes me proud to be an American. More and more, Washington DC doesn't.

It used to be that the glittering majesty and ceremony of the city on a hill enticed me. I would visit our nation's capital city at least once or twice each year, usually to protest some thing or the other, but also to soak up the energetic atmosphere of the seat of democracy. I was inspired by the Jefferson memorial. I was moved by the sprawling fields of stone at Arlington Cemetary. I was fascinated by every last detail on view in the Smithsonian museums. I distinctly recall standing on a street corner as a high school junior in the heart of the District, hundreds upon hundreds of people passing by with each signal change, and wondering at the throbbing pace of the place where our laws were made and meted out.

Somewhere along the way, though, probably very shortly after Bill Clinton stopped running for president and became president, the city and what it stood for lost its lustre. It stopped speaking to me. Literally.

All of this occurred to me last week while I was watching an episode of The West Wing, a NBC television program about the dramatic doings in a fictional White House. I came late to this show, didn't watch a single episode in its first season, and have only now made it a weekly habit. That's surprising, really, since other fictional representations of the Presidency and the White House are staples on my video shelf: Dave, Air Force One, The American President.

It's a great show -- not particularly soaring drama, but the words! The passion behind the true beliefs and the rhetoric of the faux-prez portrayed by Martin Sheen and his staff, the cadence of their compassion and conviction sorted out in speeches the like of which most of the American people have not heard in this generation outside the realm of fiction.

I am highly susceptible to a persuasive speech, a well-made point and well-wrought turn of phrase. Alone among contemporary orators, I would follow Mario Cuomo and Ann Richards anywhere and do anything they asked of me on the strength of their communications skills alone, their ability to touch a place of passion, pique and promise in me. Mario could advocate baby-eating, Ann could step up and say we should all wear purple smocks with yellow spots and I would do it unquestioningly, because they could make it sound so damned appealing a prospect.

George Bush can't do that. Neither can Al Gore. Aaron Sorkin can.

Sorkin 2004? I am so there.