Debate

On Sunday night The West Wing featured a live debate episode, where the two candidates in the fictive election threw out the traditional timed question-answer-rebut format in favor of an actual debate. They moved around, they interrupted, they argued, they pontificated. It was —albeit completely contrived — wonderful. It was obviously a rating stunt and possibly an effort to prepare the audience for a end-of-season online vote for the winner of the on-screen election. However, a clichéd idealist (or a clichéd cynic like myself), might also see an attempt to show Americans something that hasn’t happened in a long time — what an actual debate between presidential candidates might look like and how much more enlightening it could be.

Read a New York Times piece about the episode