From a NY Times Magazine article about Aaron Sorkin and "The West Wing": When I ask others involved in the show about this apparent gulf between Sorkin's experience and his work, they quickly get defensive and object to the media's radical-chic bias for vicarious darkness. 'Ooh, violence -- I went to prep school but I'm down with that,' mocks Bradley Whitford. 'Aaron is pushing the envelope of intelligence and hope, and that's so much more radical than the envelope of violence and sex.'"

The article is really interesting, mostly for the larger implications about the do-we-write-what-we-know-or-what-we-want-to-know question, but also for the specifics. I didn't know anything about Sorkin's issues with drugs. And I never really considered the show to be all idealized happiness and light. I think the author's a little off the mark with that... the characters are almost universally "good" and the show has a very positive tone, true, but it's not as though nothing bad ever happens. Then again, I only started watching the show this season, so maybe I don't know yet. And who's Bradley Whitford, the one who's cuter than Rob Lowe but doesn't know it, or the older balding Jewish guy?