When WEST WING premiered, I watched a few episodes and lost interest. However, when it hit cable, I became an adamant fan. In fact, I watch reruns of reruns. When President Bartlett and Josh Lyman were shot, I got the same feelings as I did with the Zapruder film of JFK’s asassination. Obviously, the first is drama and the second is reality.

Additionally, I feel like I have been in the west wing and the oval office. In reality,
I went to the white house once. Eisenhower was president and I was with a group of students who like President Bill Clinton “won” a trip to see JFK. The difference is that my trip was sponsored by a different organization. Well, I did not meet Ike. Congress was in recess although I saw both chambers. The highlight was the Soviet embassy where I asked a dumb question to a diplomat and took a picture in which the flash bulb exploded and caused a bit of angst among some 30 young American cold warriors and Soviet diplomatic staff.

I got a bit of a glimpse of a simulated oval office when I visited the Hoover and Truman libraries.That’s it. If I have been to the oval office at all, it has been virtually or in simulation.. Thus, we live in some illusions. The west wing effect is an emotional attachment to a flawed social construction.

D.C.

Though I have been to the capitol, I am not part of it in any direct sense. I have lived under all the presidents from FDR onward. What I think that I know I call the “west wing effect.” This means that I have an emotional attachment to a social construction that is flawed. It also means that you think that the white house blur you see in all the media is a part of reality. If I said that it was a lie that would be a lie. I am not routing you into deconstructionism here, but I want to introduce you to some statistical illusions that we all live with and that come from the white house and the federal government. They also come from all other governments, plus lobbyist groups, think tanks, corporations and related. From prestigious groups like that, those stats and interpretative narrative seem believable.

STATISTICS

I remember my first statistics class. We had a standard textbook, plus an additional reader on how to lie with statistics. When any organization releases statistics to the general public, they can be misleading. With the “west wing effect,” I do not know if we are better off today materially then we were years ago. BUSINESS WEEK (September 18, 1995) suggest that average wages are 59.8% from the peak year of 1967.

DEMOGRAPHICS

You read that we are living longer and related. All those quick snap shots of infant mortality, morbidly, life expectancy can be a bit distorted. Academic books generally go for accuracy. Public and mass media is or can be a different story. Cancer rates haven’t improved. Right? That is probably wrong. Cancer is probably down, because people live longer and are more likely to die from caner than previous generations.

Americans are getting more divorces? Right? Well, I am not sure. A century ago,
People married, one partner generally died early and alas, the divorce rate was lower than today. Further, separation, where mom lived in one part of the house and dad in another was acceptable in the eyes of the church or churches. Today, Americans do not get divorces more than numerous other countries. The top divorce nation is Russia. America is further down the list.

ECONOMICS

As this is being written, rapid growth as indicated by the GDP is probably flawed because it does not take into account outsourcing. If that phenomena becomes part of the number crunching, BUSINESS WEEK (4/5/2004:49) suggest growth is really close to a very modest gain. Thus job creation is sparse. According to Session and Wortman
WORKING IN AMERICA (Notre Dame Press, 1995.) two out of three new jobs
Created are minimum wage or close to that. If you want to think good times for the average person, think the 60’s.

WORK ACTIVITY

Having worked for the Department of Labor, all us would chuckle at unemployment rates. Lately when I called a representative for the Bureau of Commerce, he said that the unemployment rate was that which the corporations say it is. He was being a bit facetious, but the message was clear. The stats on employment are less than absolutely accurate. When I called the feds for full employment, they said that if you work 35 hours a week with many part time jobs or one job, then you are fully employed. If you are working full time and making $100,000 a year and are laid off. You then quickly get a job and work 5 hours a week in a fast food restruant, you are not unemployed. Payroll surveys vary from household surveys. Under employed, distressed workers, and related all have different meanings with different results.

During the dark depression of the 1930’s it appeared that 75% had jobs. Well that’s something.

The “west wing effect” suggests that stats from anybody are blurry. You have to know the definitions and context, before you can call it valid or a lie.

MISCELLANEOUS

We could go on about education, agriculture, urban stats, suburban whatever and we come across the problem of stats. Don’t think stats are necessary lies. Think of them as approximates or” west wing blurs”. They are indicators, but probably not absolute validity.

If you would like to have a crummy evening, look through the crime stats some time.
First, they are confusing, than irritating, then frustrating, then overwhelming, then exhausting. It can then drive an insomniac into slumber.

WEST WING

I believe that West Wing gives a reflection or a blur of a composite of what goes on at the white house. If you watch the credits at the end, you see many names of people who help make fantasy. However, in the crawl at the end there are also advisers who have actually served in the west wing that review or appear to review the fiction.

So in the end, the west wing and the west wing effect are indicators, but not absolute nomenclatures of this fictionalized account. You got that? If you feel that you do, that is the “west wing effect.” It’s an account in numbers and words of what probably happened, but ultimately did not actually happen.

What is ultimate truth and reality should be left to the areas of philosophy and it’s cousins in the social sciences.

And so it goes. If you can accurately describe “it’ history is being made right here..