Dowd + Sorkin = ?

If professional gossip-monger Liz Smith is to be believed, the most overrated writer in punditry is now romantically linked to the most overrated writer in television. I blog this salacious and unconfirmed story so the rest of you can join me in a great big shudder.

Comments

[Marie]

Jesse, how can you?! Maureen is indeed dreadful, but The West Wing is great.

[Todd Fletcher]

God forbid they should breed.

[Sven]

Would that make their offspring, er, Dworkin?

[None]

She's quite the lady. First Michael Douglas, now Aaron Sorkin. Very Page Six!

[Jim Henley]

This reminds me of the time, some years ago, that the Post reported that Martha Stewart was dating John McLaughlin and I could not shake the gruesome image of sexual congress that arose within my mind. Damn you, Jesse, it's all coming back!

[Jesse Walker]

A reader informs me that this is actually an old story -- apparently, a related rumor was circulating a year or two ago. Of course, the fact that a tale has been around for a while doesn't mean it's true.

[quaker120]

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.

I can't resist a short rant on that statement, Jesse.

I was obsessed with Mamet back in my early 20s (the stage of maturity when most people deem him a god). One day I tried to turn a friend of mine on to Mamet by renting "House of Games." My friend was not a facy-pants literary type like me. Ten minutes into the movie he blurted out, "Christ, this is so annoying. The acting is horrible! Nobody talks like this!"

It took me many years of stubborn hero-worship to finally admit that my friend was right. David Mamet is the most over-rated playwright in America. His movies are even worse. He was an important, playwright, but only because he finally made it acceptable for puritans to hear four-letter words on the sacred stage.

[Douglas Fletcher]

I agree with Jesse that "The West Wing" is one hell of an awful show. God, it's awful.

From Jesse's blog, a quote: "We are speaking of a man who once wrote a hilariously "powerful" scene featuring the president in a church, railing against God for the injustices of the world..."

That was one pathetically acted scene, but what's more pathetic is that it was just a rip-off of the scene with Paul Newman in "Cool Hand Luke," wherein Luke goes into an old, empty church and rails at god...well, you get the idea.

[HH]

Not surprising in the slightest.

[Franklin Harris]

For the record: "Sports Night" is the most overrated show in TV history. "The West Wing" is only No. 2 on that scale.

[Robert Hutchinson]

"You're saying it's overrated?"

"I'm saying it's overrated."

"What's overrated?"

"Sports Night."

"Sports Night is overrated."

"I thought you meant The West Wing."

"The West Wing is overrated, too."

"But not as much as Sports Night?"

"But not as much as Sports Night."

"Sports Night is more overrated than The West Wing."

"Sports Night is over The West Wing's overratedness."

[Jim Walsh]

You're both wrong: "The Days And Nights Of Molly Dodd" was by far the most over-rated. Second most is any program with Joan Cusak...

[Anonymous]

TV now has 'em going batty. This guy is actually talking to himself.

[joe]

Like Sorkin is the only TV writer who has all of his characters talk the same.

"Think all the characters on NYPD Blue talk the same?"

"That's what I'm thinking."

"That all the characters on NYPD Blue talk the same?"

"Yes, that all the characters talk the same."

"On NYPD Blue."

"Definitely, on that program, all the characters talk the same."

[discount contact lenses]

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