White House staffers find TV drama entertaining - and often accurate

WASHINGTON - The scene is the elegant White House state rooms on the night of the president's State of the Union address. The staff members are hosting their counterparts from a hit television series

Wednesday, April 12th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

WASHINGTON - The scene is the elegant White House state rooms on the night of the president's State of the Union address. The staff members are hosting their counterparts from a hit television series depicting life in the West Wing.

Over chardonnay and canapes, the young actors pump aides for insights, while the real staffers seek to nudge their pet issues onto prime time.

It could have been a riff from NBC's hit show, The West Wing, except it was real - and a bit surreal.

Hollywood meets government meets Hollywood. West Wing actors Rob Lowe, Bradley Whitford, Dule Hill and others gathered grist for their critically acclaimed drama on that late January day. Even President Clinton was pitching plot lines.

The intersection of fantasy and reality left some staffers a bit disoriented, say denizens of the real West Wing, who gathered recently to take a knowing measure of the show, its accuracy and influence.

"I was not prepared to see them in the room with staff members," says Thurgood Marshall Jr., who is the liaison between Mr. Clinton and his Cabinet. "There were a couple of moments when I sort of zoned and wanted to find out whether they had gotten the guy through the Senate [confirmation process] or not," he says, referring to a Supreme Court plot line that wrapped up last week. (The justice was confirmed.)

Mr. Marshall and four other current or past West Wing staffers, all regular viewers of the show, debated the reality of TV's fantasy at The Oval Room restaurant near the White House. Their lively exchange opened a window on Tinseltown's views of the official Washington and pulled back the curtain a bit more on America's most prestigious workplace.

Real feel

The aides - domestic policy director Bruce Reed, deputy political director Linda Moore, deputy of intergovernmental affairs Lynn Cutler, former presidential counselor Paul Begala and Mr. Marshall - praise the show, which airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m., for its utter idealism, realistic look and feel, and dexterity in incorporating an avalanche of issues and cross-currents.

They applaud the show's substantive discourse on complicated policy matters such as the 2000 census, hate crimes and the death penalty. Still, these well-placed critics chuckle over some dramatic shorthand, unrealistic politics and swift plot turns.

"It's like ER, only in the White House," Ms. Moore says. "It's like triage."

Naturally, these aides salute the picture of staffers as sharp, well-meaning, three-dimensional characters struggling to balance their personal and professional lives. The show, already renewed for another season, makes public service look cool.

Actress Allison Janney, who plays press secretary C.J. Cregg, has dubbed the show "Capra-esque." But it also takes these supposed glamour jobs down a few pegs.
In one episode, Madeline Hampton, the political consultant played by Moira Kelly, had argued in favor of sending a negotiator to a hostage standoff, only to have it end badly.

White House staffers empathized.

"She had to go throw up," Ms. Moore says. "She had made a statement. It had a real consequence on this man, his family. She was thinking, 'I say something in this meeting, thinking it was smart, and look what happens.' "

Ms. Cutler points out the authenticity of a scene where "some guy walks out at 10 o'clock at night and people say, 'Where do you think you're going?' "

Looks familiar

Some, including Mr. Begala, say they're astonished to see part of their own lives played back on Wednesday nights.

When Mr. Whitford's character sparred with a conservative Christian leader during a television interview, Mr. Begala says he jerked up out of his seat. He had tangled live with the Rev. Jerry Falwell over a video the fundamentalist preacher was touting that alleged the Clintons were tied to a murder.

"On the show, the guy gets in trouble" with the president and his fellow staffers, says Mr. Begala, a University of Texas alumnus who recently worked in Austin. "In the real world, let me tell you, I did not get in trouble at all."

This group of Democratic appointees has not the least concern about the show's overarching liberal story lines or its portrayal of virtually all Republicans as, well, bad people.

"Isn't the show supposed to be about real life?" cracks Mr. Marshall.

"Is there something wrong with that?" Ms. Cutler chimes in.

It's no coincidence that the show draws a clear picture of the Clinton White House, especially during the early years. Former press secretary Dee Dee Myers is a consultant, as are former Democratic strategist Pat Caddell and one-time Democratic Senate aide Lawrence O'Donnell.

Ms. Moore, 38, who hails from Kaufman, Texas, says she set out to dislike The West Wing.

"I thought that it would be so implausible and have no base in reality," she says of the show. "I thought it would make me crazy. But then I watched it one night and, I thought, 'Well, this is pretty good.' "

White males

Much has been made of the mostly white and male staff working for the show's president, played with gusto by Martin Sheen. The paucity of women and people of color irks many in the real West Wing.

Ms. Cutler, a key administration liaison to women and ethnic groups, says she gave the cast an earful during their visit. "I said, you guys are lacking a lot of diversity on this show.

I love the show but you are lacking a lot of diversity."

Like several other series criticized for a lack of minority characters, The West Wing made a prominent early-season addition: Dule Hill, who is black, plays the president's personal aide and love interest for the first daughter.

Recent shows have featured a more diverse support staff.

Set criticism

The show's elaborate set, said to be one of Hollywood's most expensive, is a surprisingly faithful re-creation. Mr. Sorkin, executive producer and chief writer, was the screenwriter for The American President. That film, too, was hailed for its visual authenticity.

One annoyance to the current staffers is the show's wide, crowded hallways, where characters walk and banter and bounce off each other. In truth, West Wing passageways are narrow with thick padded carpets and soft lighting. They can be as hushed and solemn as a church.

Ms. Cutler, 62, marvels at the spacious White House offices in TV land. "All those windows - what is that about?"

As in the real West Wing, the TV staff has an easy, bantering relationship with the president. But Ms. Myers has said she struggles to keep the show's dialogue from being too flip.

Despite stylistic and substantive quibbles, the Clinton aides maintain that the weekly dose of fiction can be closer to the truth than factual news accounts.

The role of journalism is "to just give the facts of what happens and the facts about that one thing," says Mr. Begala, 38, now an MSNBC talk show host and college instructor. "What the show can do is show you that that one thing might only have been five minutes of the deputy chief of staff's job that day."

Unique perspective

The show expertly fields the dizzying array of topics that arise, often unexpectedly, these staffers say.

"So many things are happening at so many different levels. It's like spinning plates - you just know that some of them are going to drop," says Mr. Begala.

But White House drama in real time would be wholly undramatic much of the time, Mr. Reed, 40, suggests.

For the episode about President Josiah "Jed" Bartlet's State of the Union speech, Mr. Reed says, "it would have to be planned for an hour and a half" - a reference to Mr. Clinton's record-length speech this year.

That episode also prompted questions about the show's core premise. Critics say it is Hollywood's fantasy presidency, unsullied by Mr. Clinton's dalliances with Monica Lewinsky and unshackled from his centrist, New Democrat moorings.

In the show, President Bartlet dramatically declines to say - as Mr. Clinton did - that "the era of big government is over." The "acting president," as Mr. Sheen has jokingly referred to himself, is faithful to his wife. He eschews profanity.

Press abuse

The press takes its licks, too, which is a treat for these scandal-scarred White House veterans.

The most prominent reporter on the show, played by thirtysomething's Timothy Busfield, is personally involved with the press secretary, an ethical no-no. Several potential scandals, meanwhile, are slipped under the media's radar.

Then there's this: The president has a form of multiple sclerosis but no one except his wife and the chief of staff knows.

"He does?" cracks Mr. Marshall, the 42-year-old son of the late Supreme Court justice.

Seriously, could that happen? Could the president of the United States have a major illness and keep it secret?

Naw, aides insist. That only happens on television.