THE U.S. POET LAUREATE

Descriptions

From TVGuide.com:

Laura Dern guest stars as the new U.S. Poet Laureate (and Toby is looking forward to meeting her).
In the main story, Bartlet fires the first shot (unofficially) of his reelection campaign when he calls his likely opponent less than brilliant ("a .22-caliber mind in a .457-magnum world" is the way he puts it) at the end of a local-TV interview, and the national press just can't get enough of it. The White House response: a "non-apology apology" from C.J. and a promotion for conservative staffer Ainsley Hayes (Emily Procter).

From NBC:

When the President (Martin Sheen) is overheard making a disparaging comment on an open-mike about the potential Republican nominee, C.J. (Allison Janney) does damage control for days after while Toby (Richard Schiff) tries to finesse the newly named poet laureate (Laura Dern) from speaking out against the United States' lack of support for a land-mines treaty. Elsewhere, Sam (Rob Lowe) recalls Republican White House legal counsel Ainsley Hayes (Emily Procter) from vacation to help spin the administration's response to Bartlet's gaffe; Josh (Bradley Whitford) is both repulsed and intrigued by the fact that he has his own fan-based Web site -- LemonLyman.com.

From Warner Bros.:

Bartlet makes a disparaging comment about a potential Republican nominee after a television interview, not realizing that he is still being recorded. For days, C.J. must control the scandal, and Sam recalls Republican White House legal counsel Ainsley Hayes (Emily Procter) from vacation to help formulate the administration's official response. Meanwhile, Toby tries to dissuade the newly named U.S. poet laureate, Tabatha Fortis (Laura Dern), from publicly objecting to the government's lack of support for a treaty on land mines. Bartlet ponders saving a failing computer company. And Josh is both repulsed and intrigued by the fact that there is a fan-based Web site devoted to him.

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Media Quotes

Even as advocates for a ban on land mines lobbied the Bush administration, they were looking for help from another US president.

So they approached NBC's "The West Wing" hoping to get the land mine issue written into the show. As it happens, that was already in the works. Tonight the show tackles the subject as President Josiah Bartlet's White House reportedly tries to dissuade a poet laureate, played by actress Laura Dern, from criticizing the US failure to back a land mines treaty.

The word is that Bartlet doesn't endorse the ban - a turn of events that has advocates a little worried. They include Grammy-winning singer Emmylou Harris, who just last week gave a Boston-area concert to raise money for the cause.

"It's one thing to go against Bush," she said in a meeting with The Boston Globe editorial board. "But you know you're in trouble when President Bartlet is against you."

...

Asked to gauge the value of having land mines turn up in a "West Wing" episode, Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation president Bobby Muller says, "It is of extraordinary importance. The cultural mechanisms are critical to any campaign."

"Getting President Bartlet's ear"
By Mark Jurkowitz
March 27, 2002
Boston Globe

I am a great fan of the television series "The West Wing." Besides being entertaining, it thoughtfully presents both sides of serious and controversial issues, sometimes uncannily current ones, which is the case in this week's episode.

Tonight's show contains a subplot pertaining to US policy on banning land mines, which is now under review by the Bush administration. It happens to be an issue that I have been actively involved in through the prodigious efforts of Bobby Muller and the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation since 1997.

...

The humanitarian side of the issue will, I'm sure, be addressed by President Bartlet's staff. But they might also take into consideration that land mines in today's warfare are not only obsolete but, in the opinion of many experienced and highly respected military minds, militarily irresponsible. They limit mobility and kill or maim indiscriminately. Our own US forces are already suffering casualties from land mines in Afghanistan.

...

So for an hour tonight, the policy debate around land mines will be dramatized for the American people, at least in a fictional context. And I will be watching with interest to see what President Bartlet will do. When the hour has ended, the tragedy of land mines - this plague of terrorism in slow motion - will still loom heavy in a very real world, and the question will still remain: Will President Bush do the right thing and ban land mines now?

"Will this president ban land mines?"
By Emmylou Harris
March 27, 2002
Boston Globe

Then, on Wednesday, "The West Wing" featured a plotline in which the newly named U.S. poet laureate chastises the White House for not signing the international treaty banning landmines. Her conviction stems from a searing personal experience, watching a father and son fishing in Bosnia. "The kid hooked a piece of garbage," she tells communications director Toby Ziegler, "and when he tried to take it off the line it blew him up. Right in front of his father. And right in front of me."

Hollywood's creative convergence on this issue comes at a time when the real West Wing is reviewing America's landmine policy. As it currently stands, the U.S. has stubbornly refused to join the 142 nations that have signed the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty forbidding the use, stockpiling and production of anti-personnel landmines -- a devastating weapon that has proven far more effective at killing and maiming innocent civilians than enemy troops.

Since 1975, landmines have killed over a million people -- far outstripping the deaths caused by those well-publicized bugaboos, nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. The buried bomblets claim a new victim every 22 minutes -- that's 24,000 casualties a year. And of those 24,000, 95 percent are civilians. Even more horrifying, 30 percent of those maimed or killed are children.

"Hollywood Sends A Message"
By Arianna Huffington
March 27, 2002
AriannaOnline

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