revolution in the pentagon

I hate The West Wing.  Secret because I know many, many moderate Democrats who worship the show, including my cousins, who forced us to watch its Christmas episode.  I think it involved homeless people and coats or something.  I'm actually going to make a numerical list for this one, because it's not a holistic philosophical thing. The West Wing is just bad.

1. It's factually incorrect. One episode featured some blonde chickie freaking out over voting for the wrong person on her Wisconsin absentee ballot (she failed to vote for her boss, the President) and getting some honorable army guy to change his own vote in Washington D.C. to compensate.  Because apparently there is no electoral college in The West Wing.
2. It's boring as fuck.  It gives politics a bad name, it's so boring as fuck. 
3. It's way too self-congratulating.  There is no self-awareness and thus no self-criticism.  You know, the way Family Guy bashes everyone other than the characters who represent the writers of the show - in contrast to shows like The Simpsons and King of the Hill, which pokes loving fun at its own protagonists.  When the President won re-election they actually played the triumphant we-will-not-go-quietly-into-the-night music from Independence Day.  Really. 
4. It trivializes almost every issue by oversimplifying it into a neat little pamphlet-shaped Public Service Announcement.  Especially anything involving a foreign country. 
5. I hate all the characters.  Because they're boring.  A lot of people find them likable but I feel like they're unreal and pretentious, unlike anyone I can imagine existing in real life.  If they have any flaws, I don't remember them.  They're like the perfect administration for all the smug Midwestern liberals who love Garrison Keillor.  And we all know my feelings on Garrison Keillor.  I mean, compare The West Wing to W.  In spite of my politics, I would actually rather be a staffer for the Bush White House than the Bartlet White House. 
6. It's the wrong way to get people into public service.  Apparently that was Aaron Sorkin's goal.  But really?  I think you get people into public service by making them care about the world, not by luring them with the prospect of being prestigious and cool. 
7. It's Liberalism.  And I don't mean it's liberal as American politics defines it.  I mean, it is, but what I mean is, it's Liberalism.  And I hate that idealistic, excuse-for-colonialism, self-righteous, Ethical-Policy, Europe-ensconced-in-a-golden-halo bullshit.  

Here's some other people who hate The West Wing:
Gene Healy: Has there ever been a sweller bunch of folks than Toby, Sam, Donna, Josh and C.J.? A more selfless, high-minded, public-spirited, fundamentally decent pack of, er, political operators? Where in the world did Aaron Sorkin get his ideas about how politics works?  The West Wing was, above all, a Valentine to power. And despite the snappy repartee and the often-witty scripts, it was a profoundly silly show. It managed — in 21st century America — to be markedly less cynical than Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.
Martin Barna: Every plotline in Wing has been done a dozen times by a dozen shows (usually it's a sort of president-themed Law and Order, but without the wit and the intensity of Sam Waterston or Jerry Orbach).  Wing isn't terrible, just disappointing. While The Sopranos makes you sit on the edge of your chair and Showtime's upcoming Queer as Folk promises to push the envelope right out of the closet, it would seem that a show about the most important institution of them all could be a bit more edgy and a bit less light.
Bryan Alexander: There's no real dialogue between forces, no real argument. The preaching is steady, never seriously argued....West Wing doesn't really allow any other views to appear as legit. This makes it easy on the brain. The entire staff is drawn from the Northeast and the West Coast, probably without modern precedent.  But Sorkin hates the South, and doesn't seem to realize the plains exist. Hence the Evil Racist Assassins being Southerners -- and arrested at a restaurant called "Dixie Pig" or something. This feeds into a lot of easy regionalism.
Jesse Walker: Few people can write dialogue with tricky, "literary" rhythms that nonetheless is credible as a conversation; the living writer who's probably best at it is David Mamet. Sorkin tries to pull this off, and he fails miserably: the accents are in the wrong places, the repartee sounds forced, and everything is way too self-conscious. When I'm watching a Sorkin-scripted movie or TV show, it doesn't matter what's on the screen: All I can see is our smug auteur pounding away at his word processor, periodically yelping, "I'm writing!" to the ceiling.