An Artist’s Job Is To Captivate… If

And A Wheat Thin The Size Of Lake Tahoe.

A Hero Would Die For His Country, But He'd Much Rather Live For It.

I Wrote The Show West Wing For The Two Years Before And The Two Years After 9/11. Suddenly Everyone In The World Had Been Through Something That Our Characters Had Not Been Through; The Whole Trajectory Of The World Had Changed. Yet Our Show Took Place In A Parallel Universe. I Wasn't Really Sure What To Do About This. In No One's Wildest Dreams Did It Occur That An Event Like This Could Possibly Happen.

I Would Love For People To Think That I Am As Quick, Clever, Smart And Heroic As The Characters That I Write, But Those Characters Are Characters.

Television From Its Inception Had The Number One Goal To Alienate As Few People As Possible. That's Why If You Look At 1950s, 1960s American Sitcoms, The Characters Don't Live Any Place In Particular, Religion Is Never Discussed, Politics Is Never Discussed, You Never Really Know What Anyone's Job Is; Nothing That Could Make These People Seem Different From You Is Ever Discussed.