Legal Commentary

Earlier in the week, I wrote about the idea that The West Wing's final season seemed to have predicted three of the four players in the 2008 presidential election: the young, charismatic, relatively inexperienced minority Democrat; his older, establishment, foreign-policy-steeped running mate; and his moderate, anti-GOP-establishment, foreign-policy-focused Republican opponent.

So how does Sarah Palin (anti-choice and very socially conservative, beloved by the Religious Right and chosen to appeal to the unenthusiastic conservative base, governor of a small state) compare with The West Wing's Ray Sullivan (socially conservative and anti-choice, intended to appeal to a suspicious and unenthusiastic conservative base, governor of a small state (West Virginia))? The obvious difference, besides gender, is in experience (the Sullivan character was a former U.S. Attorney and a two-term governor) and [ed.: apparent, at this point] intellectual heft. Frankly, had the show's writers written Sarah Palin as the GOP nominee for vice president they would have been ripped apart by commentators as liberals stacking the narrative deck and making Republicans look unrealistically unserious.