Happy Birthday, Alan Alda. Wish You Were President Right Now.
What might have been.
Alan Alda, who turns 90 today, was almost the U.S. president, at least on TV.
Alda was the model for my childhood liberalism and self-righteousness as Hawkeye Pierce on M*A*S*H. I recall a scene from a 1972 episode of the show where a sergeant refers to Koreans by an ethnic slur (one John McCain knew well). Hawkeye says firmly, “I don’t like that word.”
Donald Trump’s re-election has made very small men feel very big. Some have even declared themselves “free” to use disparaging terms about people who are less fortunate or just different. Hawkeye loved a good joke but he drew the line at callous bigotry. Somehow, that line was clearer more than 50 years ago.
Alda’s Hawkeye was kinder and more self-aware of his own flaws than the Hawkeye Donald Sutherland played in Robert Altman’s 1970 movie. His Hawkeye was often sexist (it was the 1950s by way of the 1970s) but he wasn’t sexist. The latter is a committed philosophy, the former is simply human. Everyone has flaws and the most productive politics challenges those flaws without dismissing anyone as irredeemable.
Alda was more than just Hawkeye Pierce. He was especially good in the Woody Allen films Crimes and Misdemeanors and Manhattan Murder Mystery. In both, he’s clearly written as the romantic foil yet his personal charisma has you rooting for him over Allen’s petulant lead.
Alda was the perfect choice for The West Wing’s idealized Republican nominee for president, Arnold Vinick. A senator from California, Vinick had a pro-choice voting record and wouldn’t commit to appointing judges who might overturn Roe v. Wade. Unlike the overtly religious President Jed Bartlet (Martin Sheen) and his Democratic opponent Matt Santos (Jimmy Smits), Vinick was a stealth atheist, uncomfortable with public proclamations of religious faith.
He also supported immigration reform. Instead of raging against “coastal elites,” Vinick celebrated California as “the one state that has everything: big cities, small towns, mountains, deserts, farms, factories, fishermen, surfers, all races, all religions, gay, straight, everything this country has. There's more ‘real America’ in California than anywhere else.”
Vinick’s campaign manager was Bruno Gianelli (Ron Silver), who’s previously helped secure President Jed Bartlet’s re-election. Bruno had often clashed with Bartlet’s staff, whose idealism sometimes seemed indistinguishable from elitism. He delivers a dressing down to Bartlet’s team that is also a stirring call to action if they’d only listen. Democrats could stand to hear this today more than ever. (Watch below.)
BRUNO: I’m tired of working for candidates who make me think that I should be embarrassed to believe what I believe … I'm tired of getting them elected! We all need some therapy, because somebody came along and said, "'Liberal' means soft on crime, soft on drugs, soft on Communism, soft on defense, and we're gonna tax you back to the Stone Age because people shouldn't have to go to work if they don't want to!" And instead of saying, "Well, excuse me, you right-wing, reactionary, xenophobic, homophobic, anti-education, anti-choice, pro-gun, Leave It To Beaver trip back to the Fifties...!", we cowered in the corner, and said, "Please. Don't. Hurt. Me." No more. I really don't care who's right, who's wrong. We're both right. We're both wrong. Let's have two parties, huh? What do you say?
Bruno’s defection to Vinick mirrored Silver’s own. He was a lifelong Democrat who switched parties after 9/11.
Alda turned 70 during The West Wing’s final season. That is practically middle aged by today’s political standards but at the time, he was on the older end of candidates, like Bob Dole in 1996 and John McCain a couple years later.
Leo McGarry (John Spencer) was Bartlet’s chief of staff who somewhat implausibly became Santos’s vice presidential pick. It doesn’t seem wise for a young, inexperienced presidential candidate to choose a running mate with a serious heart condition. Unfortunately, Spencer would suffer a fatal heart attack during the show’s final season.
The story goes that Vinick was originally intended to win the presidential election but after Spencer’s tragic death, it felt like too much of a downer for Santos to lose. Unfortunately, real life isn’t so charitable to Democrats.
Right now, it’s hard not to wish for a President Vinick or President Hawkeye. We could use Alan Alda’s essential humanity in the White House.
It's so much easier to read about my favorite show than watch it, and that makes me so sad.
Essential humanity is a really great thing, and you miss that when there is a maladministration. Great article.