HBO Teases Sorkin's 'The Newsroom'
- Thread starter IndyJones
- Start date
Strangely timed to coincide with the firing of Keith Olbermann.
I'm a little worried about the guy claiming he's a registered Republican, because Sorkin can do many things, but writing a plausible conservative viewpoint is not one of them. Traditionally he produces either caricatures or people who claim they're conservative while actually acting like liberals (this guy looks like the latter).
I'm a little worried about the guy claiming he's a registered Republican, because Sorkin can do many things, but writing a plausible conservative viewpoint is not one of them. Traditionally he produces either caricatures or people who claim they're conservative while actually acting like liberals (this guy looks like the latter).
Keith Olbermann is fired so often there was a good chance the trailer would come out to match one of them. 
Sorkin lost it.
From that clip it looks like all the same mistakes that Sorkin made with Studio 60 are coming back. The guy has a meltdown, is that the only way Sorkin can start a show? Even Sports Night kind of started with a breakdown.
I understand you need sexual drama between the characters, but West Wing did it somewhat gracefully, and not just thrown down our throats when it doesn't seem like the characters should even get along.
I hope I'm wrong, but I have a feeling this won't be that grand. Not that it matters anyways, it's on HBO, it will only last two seasons anyways.
Sorkin lost it.
From that clip it looks like all the same mistakes that Sorkin made with Studio 60 are coming back. The guy has a meltdown, is that the only way Sorkin can start a show? Even Sports Night kind of started with a breakdown.
I understand you need sexual drama between the characters, but West Wing did it somewhat gracefully, and not just thrown down our throats when it doesn't seem like the characters should even get along.
I hope I'm wrong, but I have a feeling this won't be that grand. Not that it matters anyways, it's on HBO, it will only last two seasons anyways.
Yeah, I guess HBO can hire him if things go badly with Jeff Daniels.
I don't know, Ainsley Hayes made some good arguments in favor of Conservative positions from time to time.
I can't wait. I loves me some Sorkin.
Ainsley is a pretty good example of a character written mostly as a liberal with occasional protestations to the contrary.
Game of Thrones, The Newsroom, Veep, and Girls all make me more glad than ever to have an HBO subscription.
No, it's just that the modern definition of "conservative Republican" has swung so far to the radical right fringe that positions that would've been solid conservatism in the age of Nixon or even Reagan are now denounced as borderline communism. Republicans used to be the champions of environmentalism; Nixon founded the EPA. Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood initially had strong bipartisan support.
There are plenty of registered Republicans out there who don't agree with the radical fringe of the party, who favor a more moderate definition of conservatism, but they've been systematically shut out of the conversation.
Ainsley Hayes was very much a conservative in the classic sense. She believed that government's role should not be any larger or more intrusive than it absolutely needs to be. If you proposed to her a law whereby the government could force doctors to perform invasive and unnecessary vaginal ultrasounds on pregnant women or require them to carry miscarried fetuses to term, she would see that as a profound betrayal of the most fundamental conservative principle of minimizing government intrusion in people's lives, and she'd be absolutely right. You talked about a plausible conservative position? The problem is that in real life, there's no such thing anymore. Or at least, those who have plausible conservative positions are being drowned out and denounced as liberal by people who no longer know the meaning of those words.
Real nice analysis of the trailer and of Sorkin TV in general here: The Ten Most Sorkin Things In The Trailer.
^Hee hee. That article is spot-on.
I thought a Dumb and Dumber sequel was being shot for a second...
I wonder if Fox News has already started attacking this show yet?
New Aaron Sorkin show on HBO about news media? Sold. I can't wait. 
I'd love to hear a few examples of "conservatives" or even "moderate" republicans you don't consider members of the "radical right fringe." In fact, I bet you thought Guiliani, Schwarzenegger and Pataki were radical right wingers.
Anyway, onto the merits of the show....
Love Sorkin's movies, never care for his TV shows. Unlike the movies, where he is generally capable of writing voices other than his own, his TV shows almost always end up being about him (or how he views himself): some put upon creative guy forced to work with philistines who constantly threaten his integrity as a truth teller.
Even "the West Wing" came close to having that happen but Sheen ended up stealing the show as Bartlett and so the probably Sorkin stand-ins (Sam and/or Josh) never ended up dominating the show.
No, I did not, because I'm not the kind of ideologue who has to demonize the opposition; I think it's more important to seek understanding and common ground. I want there to be moderate, reasonable people on both sides because it's the only way the country can work; so I have no incentive to delude myself into thinking that everyone I disagree with is an irrational extremist. I know that would be a false belief because I've had personal friends who were moderate or liberal Republicans.
John McCain was a moderate Republican that I had a great deal of respect for, until he ran for president and his handlers made him abandon all his genuine convictions in order to pander to the radical fringe (which seems to be obligatory these days, considering how Romney is denouncing President Obama's health care program even though it's virtually identical to the one Romney passed in his own state). Olympia Snowe, who recently resigned from the Senate due to the excessive, intractable partisanship, strikes me as a reasonable moderate. And while I don't follow politics that much, I gather that Schwarzenegger was very moderate socially and just conservative fiscally, and I can certainly respect that. The same probably goes for Giuliani, from what I can recall, but I don't know much about Pataki.
The key thing here, though, is that I'm not just expressing my own point of view. I'm not that invested in politics. But I've read a number of articles and essays in recent months from moderate Republicans who are dismayed at where their party is going, and it's their viewpoint that I'm putting across here. I'm a writer, and part of a writer's job is being able to get into the heads of people who think differently from oneself, to imagine and understand how they perceive the world. So I'm able to discuss a point of view even if I don't personally share it.
Aaron Sorkin is a writer too, and a damn good one, so I'm confident that he has the same ability to understand and fairly portray different points of view than his own. In The West Wing, he made it clear that the most important divide he saw in modern American politics was not between right and left, but between sincere, intelligent, dedicated politicians who wanted to make this a better country and shallow, anti-intellectual panderers who were only after personal status or scoring partisan points. So I know that he would want to support people in either party who were more interested in compromise and solving problems than they were in perpetuating the ideological warfare that Washington politics has become. Jeff Daniels's character in The Newsroom strikes me as just that type -- someone who disagrees with Sorkin on the best way to manage the economy or whatever, but who shares his view that politics should be about intelligent problem-solving that actually makes the country work better, rather than about spouting ideological slogans and engaging in petty political brinksmanship while our nation's real problems and needs go unaddressed. I've seen plenty of evidence that there are Republicans who feel the same way, and I think Sorkin's capable of portraying a character who represents them and voices their position eloquently.
Yeah, yeah, yeah...McCain was the left's favorite republican...until he ran against their nominee. Then they all bent over backwards to find excuses to denounce him for a shift that never really occurred.
We're seeing the same thing with Romney now. A moderate republican is, in all likelihood, about to win the GOP nomination for the second time in a row--despite the party being controlled by "the radical right fringe"--but since that doesn't fit in with the partisan rhetoric of his opponents we need to pretend he made some great shift is now some sort of hardcore right winger.
Meanwhile the four top democrats in the country are Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.
While in the Senate, Obama voted with his party 97% of the time and had one of the most liberal voting records in that body (along with Biden). Pelosi is routinely ranked one of the most liberal members of the house (and, in fact, was opposed by many conservative democrats in 2010). Even Reid, arguably the most conservative of the four, votes toward the left approximately 80% of the time.
Accordingly, the Democratic Party is (at least by US standards) at least as far left as the GOP is far right.
Yeah, he can do it. And in his movies he does. In my experience, however, for whatever reason when he gets on TV he is not as capable of writing for voices other than his own....and not just in a political sense.
Christopher gave you a reasonably-sized list of Republicans whom he respects. Why do you ignore he rest?
Here is a list of sixty-one separate flip-flops from Senator McCain, most of them attempts to increase his popularity with the right wing during his 2008 presidential campaign.
If the irony of Mitt Romney running against the same health care system he created while Governor of Massachusetts (even as his campaign advisers brag that his views can change once the general election starts like an Etch-A-Sketch), you should perhaps consider why he's been accused of flip-flopping and moving further to the right.
A meaningless statement, because the Democratic Party is not a liberal party. It is a centrist party that occasionally leans liberal. Calling it a liberal party is a joke in countries that actually have a strong liberal movement. In a country where the range of mainstream political opinions is not restrict from "slightly-left-of-center to extreme right," the Democratic Party would be considered a conservative party.
I don't know. What does it say?
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