In the face of such a supernatural power, the appropriate response, of course, is faith. Lyman sees Bartlet give his amazing speech and he believes. But even greater than Lyman’s faith is Seaborn’s, who sees Lyman react to Bartlet’s speech and is convinced to jump ship as well. Similarly, Cregg is willing to pack up and move east based on Ziegler’s conviction that Bartlet is a good man.

But faith doesn’t merely inspire decisions. Having faith is a transforming alchemical process. Donna has no real experience with a political campaign and little grounding in her life, but she believes, more than anything, that she can help Lyman. “I think I can be good at this,” she says. “I think you might find me valuable.” On that, and on the look in her eyes, Lyman is willing to take her on.

As a public service announcement to the students who read us, let me assure you: this never works.

Throughout the S2E2 flashbacks, we’ve also come to grips with Bartlet’s stubborn grumpiness: his tendency to snap at subordinates when pushed to a conclusion he doesn’t like. Lyman and McGarry correctly diagnose this as stage fright: Bartlet’s fear of the pressure of running for President. At the end of the episode, after seeing Lyman off to the airport, Bartlet turns to McGarry and says, “I’m ready.” Not, “I need your help” or “We can do this” or “I have a secret plan to turn this country around” (all of which are implied) but “I’m ready.”

“The readiness is all,” to use the same line from Hamlet that Martin Sheen himself uses in The Departed. What distinguishes these characters from other characters is not their qualification for the job. Lyman’s a Congressional aide for Hoynes, but Congressional aides can be bought in bulk at the Falls Church Costco. Ziegler, as he confesses in a bar in New Hampshire, has zero successful political campaigns under his belt. Seaborn is coming off a stint as a corporate lawyer and Cregg has just been fired. The only thing that qualifies them for their job is the choice to take it. They saw the light – the promise of putting a good man in the White House – and chose it with enthusiasm.

To step out of analysis mode and into personal taste for a moment: this is what bugs me the most about The West Wing. The West Wing is about the Presidency of a man who perfectly embodies middle-class liberal values. I’m bothered not because I find those values distasteful, but because the man championing them is such an avatar. He’s as realistic as John Galt, the hyper-rational embodiment of Ayn Rand’s values in Atlas Shrugged. I can’t picture Bartlet smoking a cigar, or yelling at a valet, or coming to work upset because the Patriots lost last night, or anything else that doesn’t flow organically from his beliefs. (I may be proven wrong later this season, but that remains to be seen)

If The West Wing is supposed to get me excited about democracy or America again, Bartlet is the wrong guy to do it. If the system needs a perfect man surrounded by a perfect team in order to work, then the system doesn’t really work. I would be much more impressed with a show about a centrist compromiser and his team of shopworn hacks who happen to produce progressive policy against everyone’s expectations. But I don’t expect that.

And yet.

I kept comparing The West Wing to The Wire while watching. This is an unhealthy habit and one that’s unfair to Sorkin. Since I already believe that The Wire is the single greatest thing that the medium of television has yet to produce, every other show will pale in comparison.

But keeping the comparison in mind forced me to be honest. Both The West Wing and The Wire rely on ensemble casts. Both are about ancient offices that most Americans think they understand (the Presidency; cops and crooks) but still have a lot to learn about. Both grapple with serious issues. And while Leo McGarry’s pronouncement of “Don’t mess with us tonight” may be sententious, it’s no worse than “This is Baltimore, gentlemen; the gods will not save you,” spoken by Deputy Commissioner Burrell in S1 of the latter show.

Finally, watching the team put up with Bartlet’s crankiness in S2E2, the parallel hit me: The West Wing is The Wire if Baltimore were a person.

Just once, I'd like to see a non-allegorical game of chess played in pop culture.

After a few seasons of The Wire, the endemic institutional failures of the city of Baltimore start to grind on you. The cops can’t get their job done, because the Mayors who appoint their commanding officers need headlines to get elected. Workers can’t feed their families because Baltimore is no longer a sustainable port. Kids can’t get enough education to break the cycle of poverty. After a while you will doubtless turn to your significant other and say, “How can anyone live there?”

And I get that. But as a Baltimore native, The Wire speaks to me on a far more personal level. That’s not just some fictional narrative about a city falling apart; that’s my hometown. That’s where I grew up. That’s my actual city sliding into the abyss, even if some of the names and faces are changed for HBO. And while I’ve moved away from Baltimore, I can’t turn my back on it.

Josiah Bartlet occupies a similar role in The West Wing. All the other characters are trying to make sense of him, figure out how to live with him, and live up to the potential he represents while gritting their teeth at his foibles. He’s an infuriating aspirational figure. Everyone wants to be worthy of him, even as they also wish he would sometimes shut up and get out of their way.

Being able to slot characters into those positions gave me the resolve to go on. So I’m not abandoning the experiment yet. More The West Wing next time, Overthinkers.

Appendix:

• S2E2 begins with a skinhead watching the early morning news of the President’s assassination, smirking around his cigarette. As he puts out the butt in his fried egg, we see a swastika tattooed onto the fleshy part of his thumb. I wonder if this is a bad guy. Were there frames on the cutting room floor where he kicks a box of kittens into a Girl Scout?

• I could not care less about the National Security Letter that Barlet was supposed to sign before going under, or why Bartlet didn’t leave under a tent, despite S2E2’s efforts to make me care very much. The idea that lack of legal precedent would stop a President from doing something seems quaint in the Age of Terror, for one. And not only do I not care about the policy implications, I don’t care about them as sources of drama. No one is taking the Oval Office to task for not having answers on these issues, except for some gentle, slow-pitch, compassionate questioning by Danny Concannon. What would be the consequence of leaving these questions unanswered for a day, or a week, or for all time? I sincerely hope that no further screentime is wasted on these.

• No one in the Sorkinium is ever at a loss for statistics. Seaborn can rattle off the specs of oil tankers without pausing for breath or referencing his notes. Cregg has her overnight shooting stats right at her fingertips. It’s a writing conceit, of course, but I like it. It makes people seem smart and TV needs more of that.

• When Bartlet was delivering his dry economic answers in Nashua, muted in the background while Ziegler is grilled by a campaign manager, I wrote down “Bartlet = Ron Paul for Dems” in my notes. Tell me I’m wrong.