First there was “Dave,” the movie about a stand-in president who becomes a better leader than the one he replaced. Then there was “The American President,” starring Michael Douglas as a single, Clintonesque chief executive who dates a lobbyist.
“Wag the Dog” featured White House staffers creating a fictional war to divert attention from a presidential sex scandal. Last year’s “Primary Colors” was even more directly about President Clinton, with John Travolta playing the president.
Now the presidency-as-entertainment phenomenon is going weekly. “The West Wing,” an NBC drama based in the White House, debuted Wednesday night, attracting an impressive viewership and raising a new the question: Why has the Clinton presidency spawned such a surge of dramas portraying the inner workings and contending personalities of the White House?
“There have probably been 25 movies and TV shows about the presidency,” said Dee Dee Myers, a former Clinton press secretary who is consulting on “West Wing.” “Hollywood has always been fascinated with Washington and power, but the Hollywood community didn’t like Reagan’s politics. They like this president, and they like his politics. And he is a glamorous figure in a way.”
As if to illustrate the point, Myers also consulted on “Contact,” a movie about aliens communicating with Earth that featured actual footage of Clinton.
No doubt the phenomenon is fueled in part by Clinton’s youthfulness and Baby Boomer status compared with Presidents Bush and Reagan, as well as the youthful quality of such energetic former staffers as Myers, George Stephanopoulos and Rahm Emanuel.
Clinton himself has created a tight Washington-Hollywood link through his association with such movieland titans as Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg. Many have even speculated that Clinton will head a major studio after leaving office; that is unlikely, but the rumor’s existence speaks volumes.
So does the fact that the fictional presidents tend to be Democrats.
“The two pro-president movies that came out in the past few years — `Dave’ and `The American President’ — both were liberal in the sense of pushing liberal causes,” observed former White House counsel Abner Mikva of Chicago. “But I think both had a broader appeal than ideology.”
For now, it is “West Wing” that is generating buzz in Washington. It is also being watched nationwide; the show’s premiere earned a 19 share, which means nearly a fifth of those watching television were tuned in to the program.
White House staffers seem bemused by the fact that TV executives consider the inner operations of their workplace suitable material for a prime-time drama, alongside sexy comedies or dramas such as “Friends” and “NYPD Blue.”
Emanuel, Clinton’s former senior adviser, said that because he has worked at the White House, he does not necessarily want to watch a show about it. “Been there. Seen it. Done it,” Emanuel said.
But mostly, current and former White House employees have a new parlor game: dissecting what about the show is realistic and what is not. Yes, the press room looks like that. And the phones do have those large White House seals on them.
But the most common observation is that the real White House does not resemble the madhouse portrayed in the show, with frenzied staffers constantly scurrying about in the throes of crisis.
“It looks more like `NYPD Blue,’ or a police station house, than the way it actually is in the White House,” said former Clinton speechwriter Michael Waldman. “There were more people milling around, shouting to each other over six people’s desks. The real White House is much more hurry-up-and-wait — long periods where nothing seems to happen, punctuated by intense scenes of activity and drama.”
James Kennedy, of the White House counsel’s office, said the show’s pace imitated that of the hospitals featured in popular medical dramas.
“They really tried to make it look like an emergency room with the hustle and bustle,” Kennedy said. “They made it look like the Pentagon in a time of war, with all the TV monitors and computers, and it is a lot more quiet and dignified.”
Like many White House staffers, Kennedy does not literally work in the White House, but in an adjacent building called the Old Executive Office Building, or OEOB. “I’m waiting for a spinoff called `OEOB,’ ” he said.
Domestic Policy Adviser Bruce Reed observed dryly that the White House staff on the show appeared to have “too much caffeine and not enough of an agenda.”
The fictional White House appeared fancier than the real one, added White House spokesman Joe Lockhart. “It made the place look much bigger and more luxurious. And who were all those people walking around with files in their hands?”
In some of its details, though, the show is pointedly accurate. Staffers on the show, for example, call the president POTUS, which stands for “President of the United States.” Silly as it may sound, that is, in fact, what staffers often call Clinton. First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton is often called FLOTUS: First Lady of the United States.
Myers said the program attempts to capture the spirit of the White House, even if it is not completely accurate in its details.
“It’s not about politics directly. It’s not about how laws get made,” Myers said. “That is the backdrop for the political dilemmas and personal dilemmas the characters face. It’s an ensemble drama about what it’s like to work at the White House.”
Some have speculated that the character played by Rob Lowe — described in NBC’s publicity material as “easily able to craft an appropriate presidential response and equally skilled with the ladies” — is based on Stephanopoulos. Not so, Myers said.
“I don’t think it reflects the Clinton presidency,” she said. “Rob Lowe gets asked all the time if he’s playing George Stephanopoulos, and he is not. Rob’s character is very different from George. The press secretary is a woman, but she is not me.”
Still, at least one Washington figure found a subplot reminiscent of his experience. In the premiere, a White House staffer named Josh Lyman gets in trouble for going on a talk show and telling a religious leader, “The God you pray to is too busy getting indicted for tax fraud.”
Former White House adviser Paul Begala, on CNN’s “Crossfire,” once hurled at Rev. Jerry Falwell the fact that Falwell had been cited several times by the IRS. “This was eerily familiar,” Begala said.
Lockhart found another part of the show familiar: a segment in which Lowe’s character, Sam Seaborn, gives a White House tour and begins making up historical details because he knows so little about the place, including which president the Roosevelt Room was named for.
“Having to (give tours) on a regular basis, and frankly not knowing if that room was named after Teddy Roosevelt or Franklin Roosevelt — I mean, I’m pathetic,” Lockhart said. “I haven’t gotten caught yet, but I’ve made up a few things.”
The irony of the show, though, is that it could not possibly match the drama and scandal of the real White House. In one subplot, Seaborn accidentally leaves his beeper at the home of a prostitute.
But does that really compare with reality — the president himself being caught in an affair, after having denied it on national television, in part because his former lover kept a stained dress?
Several staffers said they hoped “West Wing’s” generally positive portrait of White House aides has a good influence on the public.
“One of the reasons I was attracted to the show is Aaron works hard to portray that these people are there for the right reasons,” said Myers, referring to the show’s creator, Aaron Sorkin. “It is a much less cynical view than we have been presented with.”
The fictional president, Josiah Bartlet (whose name recalls Josiah Bartlett, a signer of the Declaration of Independence), is in fact portrayed almost heroically. As for Clinton, his opinion of the show is unknown since he apparently has not seen it.
“We’ve got a tape floating around,” Lockhart said. “Maybe we should put it in and see what he thinks.”
