The Conversation: Bartlett and Obama

The other day I killed an afternoon watching a West Wing marathon on one of those stations that does that sort of thing.

I, like, I suspect, many another progressive spent many a Thursday evening wishing that I would wake the next morning to find that my president was Jed Bartlett, and that the whole GWB thing was a black comedy out of Aaron Sorkin's wild imagination.

That being the case I was pleased that Maureen Dowd ceded some of her very valuable column inches to Mr. Sorkin for an imagined conversation between Barack Obama and Jed Bartlett.

The result was significantly more entertaining than anything Dowd usually writes (though to be fair, her mean-spritedness doesn't keep me from reading her so I guess she's doing something right).

The conversation should be read in full, especially by WW fans who always wished that Sorkin would've gone back into politics instead of wandering into TV land for his next series.

But here's a tiny taste:

OBAMA I’m interested in your advice.

BARTLET I can’t give it to you.

OBAMA Why not?

BARTLET I’m supporting McCain.

OBAMA Why?

BARTLET He’s promised to eradicate evil and that was always on my “to do” list.

Sigh.