opinion of this scene

[anvi]

[Neither would the whole "Take the Sabbath Day" episode have even been possible, where Bartlet gets hammered by a Jew, a Quaker and finally at the end a Catholic priest who he confesses to at the end of the episode for allowing a federal execution. 

Ok so just a jab at conservatives in general who support the death penalty and "claim" (a word I'm sure the writers would use) to be religious. 

My whole point here is that even if the writers intended for Bartlett to learn a lesson, the clueless, religion haters in the audience likely didn't pick up on it. Where was Tweed's post about the scene at the end? If this was truly supposed to be a religious debate, he would have posted that as well. No doubt that Tweed thought the whole egomaniac Bartlett act was "cool."

I think the "Take the Sabbath Day" episode was a jab at politicians who don't carry their religious values into their governing.  After all, it is Bartlett, and not conservatives, who is targeted in the show as being the hypocrite.  It's true that the Catholic Church has never taught that the death penality should be abolished outright, but Roman Catholic theologians, the last two popes and the majority of Catholic bishops in the American conference have opposed its infliction by the state since the mid-70's.  In the espisode's concluding scene, Bartlet complains to Father Tom Kavenaugh (played beautifully by Karl Malden) that he has prayed and received no direction, and Malden again scolds him, saying that God has sent him a rabbi, a Quaker and a priest to advise him, tells him: "God is the only one who gets to kill people," and takes his confession at the end.  I agree with you that there are a lot of scenes in the West Wing that show Jed Bartlet to have a massive ego (and a few shows that demonstrate that the writers had pretty massive egos too), but most of those same shows take Bartlet to task for that, and that's pretty hard to miss.  And I think this demonstrates that the show is a good political drama--after all, to become president, a guy, no matter whether they are a Democrat or Republican, must have an ego large enough to reach from earth at least to the Orien Nebula. 

[Bunwahaha [still dunno why, but well, so be it]]

What I feel after having seen the scene, that I just discovered, I didn't follow West Wing, it is that no matter all the claims of the president, no matter all the injustices he expresses, no matter he stomps his cigarette on the altar, what the making of the scene, the music, the motion of the camera, makes me feel it is that in the end, it is "God" "who" is the stronger. I don't know if that's done consciously.

[Keystone Phil]

And lets not forget that Matt Santos, the candidate designed to appeal most to the liberal audience of the show, explicitly believes in God, and intelligent design, and privately expresses to Leo that he opposes abortion.

Yeah, I know about all of the above but stuff like Vinick's "I'm lying to a liar" was probably seen as a good justification in the eyes of the viewers. I never took the whole Butler situation as anything but a huge eye roll at the silly religious conservatives.

It's true that the Catholic Church has never taught that the death penality should be abolished outright, but Roman Catholic theologians, the last two popes and the majority of Catholic bishops in the American conference have opposed its infliction by the state since the mid-70's.  In the espisode's concluding scene, Bartlet complains to Father Tom Kavenaugh (played beautifully by Karl Malden) that he has prayed and received no direction, and Malden again scolds him, saying that God has sent him a rabbi, a Quaker and a priest to advise him, tells him: "God is the only one who gets to kill people," and takes his confession at the end. 

Yes, I know but what is that a jab at? It's a jab at Bartlett not being in touch with a more liberal viewpoint of the Church. Again, I'm not saying that the writers try to bash religion at every turn in this show. They have, however, made it clear when they want to provoke an eye roll or poke fun at religious conservatives though.

[anvi]

Sure, the show did make fun of religious conservatives sometimes.  But, I have to point out, Bartlett is an American Catholic, and there are plenty of Republican American Catholics.  My dad was one.  He was a very conservative Catholic, both in terms of moral and religious teachings and in terms of political policy.  But he was against the death panalty, following modern church teachings.  He was against many kinds of killing.  He was a staff sargent in WWII aboard an aircraft carrer on the way to mainland Japan when the bombs were dropped, and even though he was relieved not to have to fight, and probably die, on mainland Japan, he maintained all his life that the dropping of those bombs was a sin, because dropping bombs on defensless civilians in his belief was mass murder, even in wartime.  He was, of course, also vehemently opposed to abortion.  Agree or disagree with the Catholic Church about capital punishment or my dad about the bombing of Japan, or whoever, but the label "religious conservatives" does not describe a group of people with identical belief systems, regardless of which party they belong to.     

[Keystone Phil]

But, I have to point out, Bartlett is an American Catholic, and there are plenty of Republican American Catholics.

Yeah, I know. I'm one of them. I don't know the relevance here.

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Yes, I understand that but the point here is that it's a more liberal viewpoint. Bartlett didn't agree at first but then he had his "coming home" moment with the liberals on this issue. It was set up to remind people of the "better" views of the Church while other views were mocked.

[anvi]

The relevance is that you appear to associate every religious conviction that you disagree with as a "liberal" one.  So, you take opposition to the death penalty as a "liberal" policy position, even though it's embraced not only by Catholics in America but Catholics all over the world who espouse very conservative positions like opposition to abortion, contraception, homosexualty, ect. ect. ect.  And therefore, you interpret Bartlett's confession to be a "coming home" to a "liberal" view.  I take it to be a coming home to a Catholic view, not a liberal one.  It's entirely possible that I'm extraordinarily wierd, but I see it that way because I consider myself a liberal, but I have no objection at all to the death penalty provided the crime committed is a capital crime and that a very high threshold of certainity has been reached according to due process that the accused in fact committed the crime.  I don't think "conservative" and "liberal" religious views always correlate with American "conservative" and "liberal" political convictions.       

[Keystone Phil]

The relevance is that you appear to associate every religious conviction that you disagree with as a "liberal" one.

Well, no, that's not true...

 

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First of all, I'm willing to bet that most American Catholics are in favor of the death penalty but even if they weren't, that doesn't suddenly make opposition to the death penalty a conservative viewpoint (at least by American standards).

 

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It's coming home to a Catholic view but look at how it's done. I think the underlying message in a lot of these religious episodes is that religion can be good if done "our" way. So it's both a Catholic and liberal view.

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In this case, they do and I think there is referencing to that in some of these episodes.

[12th Doctor]

And lets not forget that Matt Santos, the candidate designed to appeal most to the liberal audience of the show, explicitly believes in God, and intelligent design, and privately expresses to Leo that he opposes abortion.

Yeah, I know about all of the above but stuff like Vinick's "I'm lying to a liar" was probably seen as a good justification in the eyes of the viewers. I never took the whole Butler situation as anything but a huge eye roll at the silly religious conservatives.

It's true that the Catholic Church has never taught that the death penality should be abolished outright, but Roman Catholic theologians, the last two popes and the majority of Catholic bishops in the American conference have opposed its infliction by the state since the mid-70's.  In the espisode's concluding scene, Bartlet complains to Father Tom Kavenaugh (played beautifully by Karl Malden) that he has prayed and received no direction, and Malden again scolds him, saying that God has sent him a rabbi, a Quaker and a priest to advise him, tells him: "God is the only one who gets to kill people," and takes his confession at the end. 

Yes, I know but what is that a jab at? It's a jab at Bartlett not being in touch with a more liberal viewpoint of the Church. Again, I'm not saying that the writers try to bash religion at every turn in this show. They have, however, made it clear when they want to provoke an eye roll or poke fun at religious conservatives though.

Maybe the viewers took it that way, but many people, looking at the same situation, are going to view it differently.

In the DVD commentaries, the writers seem to think that the entire situation was presented to put Vinick in the wrong.

[Keystone Phil]

In the DVD commentaries, the writers seem to think that the entire situation was presented to put Vinick in the wrong.

Yeah, well, remember when the writers tried to sell us that they had Vinick winning the election but made Santos win after Leo died? 

[anvi]

I'm revising my post from this morning.  So, fine, some of the scenes in the West Wing were jabs at religious conservatives.  Good for the writers.  No wonder the show was so great!  I'll celebrate with Tweed.

[© tweed]

I'm revising my post from this morning.  So, fine, some of the scenes in the West Wing were jabs at religious conservatives.  Good for the writers.  No wonder the show was so great!  I'll celebrate with Tweed.

I'll bring the beer and cigs, you get the girls

[anvi]

Will do.

[True Democrat]

This one is far better:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHaVUjjH3EI&feature=related

[Keystone Phil]

This one is far better:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHaVUjjH3EI&feature=related

I can actually appreciate this one...except for the usual Jed Bartlett ego orgasm - "When the President stands, nobody sits" and "Toby, that's how I beat him."